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THE 

SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

SLAVS AND PANSLAVISM 



BY 

THOMAS CAPEK 

MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK BAR 



■ 



Zbe IKntckerbocftet: press 

New York 
1906 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDics Received 

FEB 21 1906 

<JLASSc£.' X&, No. 



Copyright, 1906 

BY 

THOMAS CAPEK 



Kbe TSmicfca&ocfcet jpress, 1Rew ISotfe 



TO 
P. V. ROVNIANEK, Esq. 

OF PITTSBURG, PA. 

a tireless worker for slovak rights 

a recognized leader among his fellow countrymen 

this work is respectfully dedicated 

By the Author 



CONTENTS 





PAGE 




18 


The Slovaks : Past and Present 


• 53 


Language and Literature 


I02 


Social Conditions .... 


. 144 


Magyar Brothers-in-Law 


169 




. IQI 







ILLUSTRATIONS 





PAGB 




18 


Paul Joseph Safarik . 


. 30 


Michael Miloslav Hodza . 


. 84 ' 


Matica Building (Confiscated) 


. . 98 


John Holly . . . 


. 128' 






Dr. Joseph M. Hurban 


. 138 


SVETOZAR HURBAN-VAJANSKY 


206 



vu 



INTRODUCTION. 

IN the steel mills along the Monongahela 
River, in the Connellsville coke region, 
in the anthracite coal mines throughout Penn- 
sylvania, and for that matter in every factory, 
mill, and industrial concern north of the Mason 
and Dixon line, you will find, doing generally the 
hardest and meanest labor, but doing it faith- 
fully and cheerfully, able-bodied ''foreigners" 
whom their employers call indifferently "Huns," 
" Hungarians," or " Slavs." Of these work- 
men, skilled and unskilled, the Slovaks from 
Hungary form a considerable percentage. 
Pennsylvania has the largest Slovak population, 
and the name of Penn's Commonwealth is by 
all odds the most familiar English term in all 
Upper Hungary. How many of these people, 
who come to our shores in ever increasing 
numbers, are now in the United States can 
only be guessed. If we use for a basis of 
computation the enrolled members of ben- 
evolent and other organizations, of which 
Slovaks have a good many in our country, the 



IX 



x INTRODUCTION 

number will run wellnigh to four hundred 
thousand. To obtain an even approximately 
correct count is impossible, for the reason that 
our census does not classify Slovaks separately 
as such, and because, furthermore, the popu- 
lation is constantly fluctuating. It may be 
stated without fear of contradiction, that prob- 
ably no other class of people travel to and fro 
as much as the Slovaks. Steamship companies 
find them very profitable patrons. 

Nothing has been written in English about 
the Slovaks except brief articles in the various 
encyclopaedias, and even for these the reader 
was compelled to look under the collective 
title " Slavonians." Talvj (Mrs. Edward 
Robinson) has devoted a few pages to a criti- 
cal discussion of the Slovak language, but as 
her book did not touch on social and political 
conditions, dealing mainly with Slavic litera- 
ture and philology, and that in a manner now 
necessarily obsolete, the Historical Review of 
the Languages and Literature of the Slavic 
Nations does not throw much light in the 
darkness. The Millennium of Hungary, a 
compendious work issued in English by the 
Hungarian Government in 1890, is a publica- 
tion of the usual Magyar official type, and for 
hat reason must be taken only for what it is 



INTRODUCTION xi 

worth. As a matter of fact, any work that re- 
counts solely Magyar deeds and knows of only 
Magyar culture in Hungary tells mathematic- 
ally, if not actually, only half of the story of 
that country, when we bear in mind that Hun- 
gary is but one-half Magyar. More has been 
written about the Slovaks in German. An ex- 
cellent booklet appeared in Prague in 1903, 
entitled Die Unterdrilckung der Slovaken durch 
die Magyaren. 

The author of the present work is intimately 
acquainted with the American Slovak, his am- 
bitions and efforts, and in the fall of 1903 he 
had an opportunity to observe him at close 
range in his own home, and as a result of his 
observations he is prepared to say that Ameri- 
can dollars and American civilization have 
done more to uplift him than anything else 
that had been done for him by his own 
Government within the last half century. Ex- 
aggerated as the statement may seem at first, 
it is yet quite true. Just now the Slovak 
highlander is far more concerned over the 
scale of wages obtaining in and about Pitts- 
burg than he is over the wages paid in Pest. 
If the whole truth must be told, Hungary, 
ever since Kossuth's time and long before that, 
has been nothing but a foster-mother to the 



xii INTRODUCTION 

Slovaks and a cruel foster-mother at that. 
When Louis Kossuth came to the United 
States after the suppression of the Magyar 
rebellion, his powerful eloquence, and the cap- 
tivating cause of which he made himself the 
champion, won him the sympathy of every 
lover of freedom in the country. Terrible, 
though not undeserved, was Kossuth's arraign- 
ment of Austria for her shocking excesses in 
Hungary. But the Nestor of Hungarian 
liberty had nothing to say to Americans about 
the gibbets that he and his party caused to be 
erected for the prompt execution of Slovak 
and Servian rebels who demanded for them- 
selves exactly what the Magyars believed to 
be their due from Austria. During his travels 
in Hungary, the present author interviewed 
Francis Kossuth, son of Louis Kossuth, and 
now the leader of the Independents, and asked 
him whether the charge was true that the 
Slovaks were being persecuted ? Mr. Kossuth 
affected to be very much surprised. Perse- 
cuted ? Impossible ! The very fact that they 
had survived the Magyar occupation of a 
thousand years disproved effectually any tale 
of persecution. Like Kossuth reasons the 
average Magyar. Truth travels slowly but 
surely, and observing travellers from France 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

and Germany have had occasion to correct 
some of the views which our fathers and 
grandfathers still hold concerning affairs in 
the Kingdom of St. Stephen. Ludevit Stiir 
better than anyone knew and felt how shame- 
fully ill-treated his people were, and he used 
to say that their lot in Hungary was worse 
than the position of the Christian raia in 
Turkey. It may not be quite as bad as all 
that, and things may have improved consider- 
ably since the time of Stiir, who was a contem- 
porary of Kossuth, but nevertheless the fact 
is indisputable that no people in Central 
Europe are abused more impudently by a 
wicked and hostile Government than the 
Slovaks. And why ? Because all of them 
will not sell their birthright for a mess of 
Magyar pottage. If we recognize in principle 
the right of the Finns, or Jews, or Irish, or of 
any other people or sect to a separate exist- 
ence, is there any good or valid reason for 
denying that right to Slovaks ? The Irish 
make the welkin ring with their grievances at 
times ; the Finns can count on powerful sym- 
pathizers in their uneven struggle with Russia ; 
the Jews have formidable interests backing 
them everywhere ; in the same way the Mace- 
donians are not wholly without friends — but 



XIV 



INTRODUCTION 



whither shall the downtrodden Slovak high- 
lander turn for support? In his case the 
Lord is too high and the sovereign too far to 

save. 

Is it denied that they are ill-treated ? The 
Slovaks constitute one sixth of the total popu- 
lation of the country, yet how many of them 
serve the state in higher spheres of life, as 
soldiers, churchmen, or statesmen ? Not a 
single name could be mentioned. What 
Slovak journalist has not been tried or sen- 
tenced to a term in prison for political libel ? 
What Slovak deputy was not forced to defend 
a suit for incitement against Magyar nation- 
ality ? What patriotic priest has not been under 
police surveillance at one time or another? 
As often as the accusing finger is pointed at 
Pest, the answer comes : Panslavs alone are 
persecuted, not Slovaks ! But is a panslav 
a fore-doomed culprit who has no rights that 
Hungarian officials, from the gendarme up to 
the Minister of State, are bound to respect ? 
Overwhelming must be the sense of injustice 
when a national poet, a minister of the gospel, 
relieves the bitterness of his soul in such a 
heart-stirring song as " Mor ho ! " — " Kill ! " 
' Experience has shown," sadly comments Paul 
Krizko, " that at the present time there is no 



INTRODUCTION xv 

legal protection for the Slovaks in their ancient 
home." 

The present author has drawn his material 
almost exclusively from Bohemian and Slovak 
sources, consulting, however, Magyar publica- 
tions in so far as the same are translated into 
English. Below is a list of some of the writers 
and publications examined : 

Charles Kalal, Meakulpinsk^, Stephen Dax- 
ner, Jaroslav Vlcek, Zdenek V. Tobolka, 
Anton Bielek, Dr. Emil Stodola, Joseph 
Skultety, Joseph L. Holuby, Paul Joseph 
Safafik, Miloslav Bohutiensky, {Life of Kolldr), 
Pohlady ( Slovak Review), Dr. Samo Czam- 
bel, Sbornik Musedlnej Slovenskej Spolocnosti 
{Magazine of the Slovak Museum Society) , 
Dr. Julius Markovic, Ludevit Stdr, Paul Sochafi, 
Milan Lichard, Francis Pastrnek, Rudolph 
Pokorny, Joseph J. Touzimsky, Ziga Pauliny- 
Toth, Paul Krizko, Andrew Kmet, Francis 
Sasinek, Lubor Niederle, Arminius Vambery, 
Coxe, William H. Stiles, Julius Botto, Dr. 
Joseph Dejekelfalussy, W. R. Morfill, Talvj, 
E. L. Mijatovics, Valerian Krasinski, T. G. 
Masaryk, Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, L. Heilprin, 
Louis Leger, Arthur Gorgei, Professor Krek, 
Francis Palack^, John Kollar, Hurbans — father 
and son, etc. 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

That the subject-matter might be clear 
chapters on Slavs and Panslavism were in- 
cluded in this book. 

In Moravia, close to the Hungarian frontier, 
are entire villages of Slovaks, but no mention 
is made of these although Moravian and Hun- 
garian Slovaks are one and the same race. 

Diacritical marks are used wherever expedi- 
ent, except in the oft recurrent word " Slovak," 
which requires a mark on the vowel a, viz : d. 
Due regard is had to Slovak terminology, 
because its continued use is justified by cen- 
turies of approbation as against decades of 
Magyar official wantonness. 

The ethnical map of the Slavic races follows 
the standard map of Erben and the ethnical 
Russian map of 1867. 

Proper names of persons are written in ac- 
cordance with the accepted orthography of 
each race. Thus Safarik is given preference 
to Schaffarik, Jellacic to Jellachich, etc. 

The Author. 
New York City, 
December 6, 1905. 



THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 



THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 



THE SLAVS 

IT is estimated that there are between 125,- 
000,000 and 145,000,000 Slavonians. 1 In 
the east live the Russians, the mightiest branch 
of the Slavic family, numbering some 86,000,- 
000. They are divided according to dialect 
into Great Russians, Little Russians, and 
White Russians. 

In the south are the South-Slavs or Illyri- 
ans, known as Servians, Croatians, Bosnians, 

1 Under existing conditions it is impossible to state the accurate 
number of Slavs. In some countries, as for instance in Austro- 
Hungary , it is a practice to count according to the ' ' language of 
intercourse," and not according to the mother tongue, by virtue of 
which stratagem Slavs lose enormously. Basing his figures on 
official census and minimal estimates, Professor Lubor Niederle 
reckoned that the Slavs in 1900 numbered 138,987,800. At the end 
of 1904 this should have been increased by 8,000,000, giving a grand 
total of 145,000,000 or 147,000,000. German statisticians reckon 
fewer Slavs. Thus, for instance, A. L. Hickmann, in 1904, found 
132,000,000 of them. 

1 



2 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Montenegrins (Crnogorci), Slavonians, Dalma- 
tians, and Slovenes respectively. To these 
may be added the Bulgarians. All told, the 
South Slavonians number about 13,000,000. 

In the west are found the Bohemians who, 
together with their nearest kinsmen, the Mora- 
vians and Slovaks, are 8,500,000 strong; the 
Poles, computed at 17,000,000; and 150,000 
Serbs, living in the two Lusatias, all that 
is left of the once powerful branch of that 
name. 

Slavs owe allegiance to four great govern- 
ments, Russia, Austro-Hungary, Germany, and 
Turkey. 

The creeds of the Slavic nations are as 
varied as the governments under which they 
live. They belong to the Orthodox Church 
(Russians, Bulgarians, and Servians), to the 
Roman Catholic Church (Poles, Bohemians, 
Slovaks, Croatians, Slovenes), about 3,000,000 
are Uniates, or United Orthodox, 1,500,000 
Protestants (Lusatians, Serbs, Bohemians, 
Poles, Slovenes, and Slovaks), and 1,000,000 
Mohammedans (Bosnians, Hercegovinans). 

The Slavonians are members of the great 
Aryan family of nations. Originally they 
called themselves " Srbove " which signified 
" people of the same race." To Germans and 



THE SLAVS 3 

others with whom they came into contact, 
they were known as Vends or Vinds. In the 
sixth century, the use of the name Vinds be- 
came restricted to particular branches of the 
race and a new name, Slavonians, until then 
the ancient designation of a tribe settled around 
Novgorod, in Russia, gained universal recogni- 
tion. About the meaning of the word " Slav," 
" Slavonian " writers differ. Some derive it 
from " slava," glory, which interpretation, no 
doubt, is more fanciful than true. Others, 
like Dobrovsky, trace it to "slovo," word, 
thus meaning speech, as distinguished from 
" mutes," or "Nemci,"as the Slavonians called 
the Germans. " By chance or malice German 
and Latin writers degraded this national appel- 
lation of Slavs to the signification of servitude, 
slavery." 

At what period the Slavic peoples migrated 
with other nations to Europe, by what route 
they proceeded, when they separated from the 
parent stock, what common tongue they spoke, 
are problems which, unsolved and seemingly 
unsolvable, continue to occupy the minds of 
scholars. At one time the so-called Old or 
Church Slavic, into which the missionary Cyril 
translated the Bible, or parts of it, was regarded 
as the mother of all the Slavic idioms, but re- 



4 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

cent investigations have demonstrated that the 
Old Slavic is only an elder sister, and that the 
mother tongue must have passed out of ex- 
istence ages ago. White or Great Croatia, a 
country of indefinite extent, traversed by the 
Carpathian Mountains, and situated between the 
Vistula and the Dnieper, is spoken of by all 
the chroniclers as the fatherland of the primi- 
tive Slavs. There they lived, it is supposed, 
in common brotherhood, speaking, substan- 
tially, the same language, governed by the same 
traditions, and practising the same pagan rites. 
From this White Croatia, they afterwards 
spread north, west, and south, either in search 
of new possessions, or because they were 
thrust out by other nations. 

In the seventh century their migrations ap- 
pear to have ceased ; and we find them a cen- 
tury later occupying in uninterrupted continuity 
a vast tract east of the Elbe, the Saale, and 
the Bohemian Forest, southward to the Adri- 
atic Sea, in the regions where, upon the whole, 
they are still to be found to day. The names 
of rivers, cities, and villages with Slavic roots 
or terminations prove irrefutably that in ancient 
times Slavonic was spoken in Saxony, Brand- 
enburg, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and other 
provinces now German. Some of the finest 



THE SLAVS 5 

passages in the prologue to Kollar's poem, 
Slavias Daughter? dwell on the sad fate of 
the nations that lived along the Elbe and the 
Baltic and were in time absorbed by the 
Germans. 

Ay, here lies that country before my tearful eye, 
Once the cradle, now the coffin, of my nation. 

Whither have you disappeared, beloved Slavic nations, 

who here have lived, 
Nations that drank of the sea here and of the Saale 

there ? 
The peaceful tribes of the Serbians, of the Obodritian 

empire the descendants, 
Where are you, tribes of the Veleti, where, grandsons of 

the Ukri ? 
Far to the right I gaze, to the left I turn my searching 

vision, 
But in vain does my eye seek Slavs in Slavia, 
Speak, tree, their grown temple, under which offerings to 

ancient gods were burned; 
Where are those nations, their princes, cities, 
That first gave life to these regions of the north ? 

Of the Slavs in the days of paganism and 
idolatry our accounts are meagre. Native 
writers who possessed intimate knowledge of 
the country and its people did not appear 
among them until long after the introduction 

1 Adapted from Leger's Histoire de P Autriche-Hongrie, translated 
by Freeman. 



6 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

of the gospel. As all our knowledge of the 
manners, instincts, and sentiments of the 
robust Slavonian peasant of pre - Christian 
times is derived from foreigners, and, as the 
observations of contemporary writers rest 
mainly on hearsay, from tales that had been 
gathered in Slavic lands by Roman and Greek 
merchants, whom cupidity had tempted thither, 
it will be seen how untrustworthy such accounts 
must be. 

In some respects, however, all writers agree 
— as, that the Slavs were eminently agricultur- 
ists. The Germans acknowledged that the 
Slavonians taught them both agriculture and 
horticulture. The name of plough, German 
" Pflug," is of pure Slavic origin. Therein 
they differed from the primitive Germans, 
their neighbors in the west, who were seldom 
tillers of the soil, but were more generally 
roving and predatory. 

Before the introduction of feudalism among 
them, the Slavs were as free as any barbarians 
in Europe. To show that this was so, it is 
only necessary to cite an ancient law of theirs, 
which provided that captives of Slavonian 
nationality, by whomsoever held, should be 
free the instant they set foot on Slavonian soil. 
Castes and hereditary power were unknown. 



THE SLAVS 7 

All the traditions of the Bohemians, Poles, and 
Russians point to this conclusion. Everywhere 
the chiefs were elected from and by the people 
without distinction of rank or birth. Samo, 
surnamed the Great, who in the seventh 
century founded the first Slavonic empire in 
the west, was a jeweller before he became a 
ruler ; according to tradition, Pfemysl was 
called from the plough to rule the Bohemian 
nation ; and in Poland a wheelwright estab- 
lished a long line of kings. An historian who 
wrote in the sixth century says of them that 
they lived in a " democracy," recognizing no 
ruler. Such was admittedly the case with the 
Baltic Slavs, among whom each clan or village 
existed as a separate republic, and " all must 
be persuaded where none could be compelled." 
A father stood at the head of every family 
or clan. Upon his death a vladyka (vlddnouti, 
to rule) was selected, by free choice, to repre- 
sent the interests of the clan in the assembly. 
By virtue of their dignity all vladykas were 
zemans, or freeholders. Land being aliena- 
ble, it inevitably followed that some families 
acquired greater territorial possessions than 
others. In time the wealthier class of zemans, 
to whom land had come through inheritance, 
received the name leeks , a Slavonic term sig- 



8 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

nifying " field." The nobility of feudal times, 
the llechtici, as they are called in Bohemian, 
are indebted for their name and possessions to 
the leeks. To advise him on legislative and 
judicial matters, the chief magistrate (in Bo- 
hemia) chose a senate of wise men, known as 
kmets, meaning " old men." 

Usually land was held and cultivated in 
common by each clan, out of which grew a 
custom, familiar to the Scottish Highlanders, 
requiring some responsible person to be secur- 
ity at court for the good conduct of the mem- 
bers of the clan. That they possessed a code 
of laws, differing in many respects from the 
laws sought to be introduced among them by 
the Germans, is well known. 

The men tilled the soil ; the women per- 
formed domestic work. Families bore the 
name of their chieftain ; therefore, if the chiefs 
name was Mladen, Bratron, Radon, the mem- 
bers of that family were Mladenovici Bratronici, 
Radonici, the patronymic, as will be observed, 
always ending in iei. In the same manner 
villages became known by the name of the 
clan, inhabiting them — Bratronice, Radonice, 
Mladenice. A union of families constituted 
a tribe. Bohemia, for instance, was inhabited 
by a number of tribes, all of Slavonic ances- 



THE SLAVS 9 

try, but of unequal strength and influence, and 
differing slightly in speech and manners. The 
Cechs, now the dominant race, were only one 
of a number of tribes that peopled Bohemia. 
Tradition names Lucans, Decans, Liutomiri- 
nas, Psovans, Lemusians, Croatians, Netoli- 
cans, Dudlebs, Zlicans, and Sedlicans as the 
other tribes. Some of these clans became re- 
nowned for their wealth and influence. It is 
asserted that the Vrsovici, celebrated in early 
Bohemian history, numbered 3000 heads at 
the time when they were ordered to be put to 
the sword. 

Ever since the dawn of history we read of 
" Slavic discord." The Emperor Mauritius 
(539-602 a.d.) already comments on it. A 
disposition to quarrel among themselves ap- 
pears to be the common heritage of the race. 
Discord contributed to, if it did not entirely 
cause, the early downfall of some of the Sla- 
vonian nations that had lived in the north and 
in the west. From immemorial times a feeling 
of hostility seems to have existed between 
two powerful tribes, the Obodritians and the 
Lutians. Again and again they plunged into 
fratricidal wars. Tradition is silent as to the 
reason, but presumably it was tribal jealousy. 
A deep - rooted dislike kept the Serbs apart 



io THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

from the Lutians, while both these nations re- 
peatedly fought the Cechs, who, we may im- 
agine, retaliated in kind. That the Polabian 
tribes did not live on any better* terms with 
their more eastern kinsmen, the Croatians, 
Polans, Milcans, Pomeranians, and others, is 
quite certain. Divided by petty, intermin- 
able quarrels, was it any wonder that, notwith- 
standing their recognized bravery in war, 
they sustained innumerable defeats, becom- 
ing vassals to races less numerous than them- 
selves, like the Celts, Scythians, Sarmatians, 
and Goths ? 

Although Christianity had been previously 
introduced mainly by the arms of the Franks, 
the new faith was not fully established among 
them till the ninth and tenth centuries. Some 
tribes, however, continued to worship their 
ancient gods in the sacred groves long after 
that time. To two brothers, the missionaries 
Cyril and Methodius, natives of Thessalonica, 
a city of mixed Greek and Slavonian inhabi- 
tants, belong both the glory and credit of hav- 
ing given to the Slavs the light of the gospel. 
To the missionary Cyril the Slavonians are, 
moreover, indebted for a knowledge of letters, 
an acquirement that distinguishes a civilized 
people from a herd of savages incapable of re- 



THE SLAVS ii 

flection. It may be, as some writers claim, 
that letters were known to the Slavonians long 
before Cyril's time (827-869) ; indeed, there are 
evidences that the pagan priests on the Baltic 
employed written characters in their rituals. 
Yet, as that circumstance appears to have been 
barren of result, Cyril must still be regarded 
as the teacher who taught the Slavonians the 
art of written speech. Incidentally, it may be 
remarked that the legends clustering around 
the persons of the " Apostles of the Slavoni- 
ans," a title conferred upon them by affection- 
ate posterity, constitute the opening chapter to 
Slavic history. Everything that took place be- 
fore their time appears blurred and indistinct 
to us, if not hopelessly lost in a maze of tradi- 
tion and fable. 

It would be beyond both the scope and the 
purpose of this chapter to describe, even in a 
general way, the progressive, intellectual, so- 
cial, and political development of the Slavonian 
peoples from the time of Cyril and Methodius, 
which is coeval with Christianity among them, 
to the present day. Let us rather examine 
some of the causes that have retarded and 
checked that development. 

The adoption of two irreconcilable creeds, 
the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox ; the 



12 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

adoption of two rival civilizations, the Eastern 
and the Western, with their separate literatures 
and alphabets — is the first and, by many it is be- 
lieved, the principal cause. The missionary 
Cyril invented, as we have noted, an alphabet, 
consisting of forty-one letters, and known after 
him as the Cyrillic. Then he translated, or 
caused to be translated, part of the gospels and 
the liturgy into an idiom spoken at that time 
by the Macedonian Slavonians. If it had been 
possible to have adopted Cyril's language and 
alphabet, the Slavs would have achieved in 
time the same, or similar, literary unity as the 
Germans or Italians. But hardly had Cyril's 
invention begun to take root when a quarrel of 
thrones and churches broke out at Rome and 
Constantinople. The Slavic lands lay in the 
direct zone of the conflict. Whichever side 
won, the Eastern or the Western, they were 
bound to be affected. Reconciliation becom- 
ing impossible, the churches separated, and 
with them the Slavs : the Russians, Bulgari- 
ans, Servians, and a portion of the South-Sla- 
vonians being drawn into the fold of the 
Orthodox Church ; the Bohemians, Poles, 
Slovaks, and Slovenes becoming subject to the 
Church of Rome and to Latin influence. This 
was the beginning of an estrangement that 



THE SLAVS 13 

centuries of religious and literary prejudices 
have made complete. 

Another great misfortune of the Slavs was 
their apparent inability or unwillingness to 
abandon their primitive life, which afforded 
more freedom than security, and to unite in 
great commonwealths. The historian Gibbon 
expressed the opinion that the Slavs were too 
narrow in experience and of too headstrong 
passions to compose a system of equal law or 
general defence. Be that as it may, the fact is 
that, with the exception of the Poles and Bo- 
hemians, none of the western tribes succeeded 
in establishing an enduring state. Samo's em- 
pire (627-662 ?), which included a number of 
nations, went to pieces with the death of its 
founder. The great Moravian kingdom of 
Svatopluk (870-894), mention of which will be 
made hereafter, survived its ruler only a short 
time. During the second half of the tenth and 
eleventh centuries, the Bohemian princes Bole- 
slav and Bfetislav, imitating the example of 
Samo, again and again united numerous tribes 
under one sceptre. The monarchies of these 
princes, however, were no more permanent 
than those of Samo or Svatopluk. Even the 
mighty realm of Boleslav the Brave (967-1025) 
colapsed for lack of cohesive unity. That 



i 4 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

ambitious Polish prince aspired to rule over 
the Bohemians, Poles, Moravians, Slovaks, and 
Polabian Slavs. Prague was to have been the 
capital of Boleslav's empire and " King of the 
Slavonians " his title. Of all the Slavic races, 
the Russians alone were able, in face of every 
obstacle, to create and to maintain a vast 
and durable empire. The village republics of 
the Obodritians, the Lutians, the Serbs, the 
Rotars, and others, succumbed, one after an- 
other, to German domination. 

Many as were the disasters that the Slavs 
often drew down upon themselves, none was 
followed by consequences more lamentable 
than the invasion and occupation of Hungary 
by the Magyars. Slavonic territory extended 
in the ninth century from Holstein on the 
north to the Peloponnesus. Almost in the centre 
of this territory, Svatopluk, with consummate 
skill, erected and maintained a powerful empire 
in face of numerous enemies. It was here 
that Cyril and Methodius first preached the 
gospel. Assured of the support of both Rome 
and Constantinople, Svatopluk's realm seemed 
to be destined for great things. In time, it is 
more than likely, all the western Slavs would 
have joined it for reasons of expediency and 
self-protection, or would have been absorbed 



THE SLAVS 15 

by it. From it they would all have received 
Christianity, together with an entire fabric of 
laws and institutions and, above all, a common 
language and literature. In short, Svatopluk's 
monarchy, like Russia in the east, would have 
become in time a bulwark of strength to the 
Slavs in the west. But the Magyars, a nation 
totally dissimilar in language and origin, hav- 
ing thrust themselves into this body politic, 
not yet coalesced in all its parts, forever shat- 
tered all these hopes. Disrupted anew and 
separated from each other by an alien race, the 
various tribes relapsed into their former state 
of independence, political and literary. That 
the Magyars, situated, as they were, in the 
midst of Slavic people, have not been absorbed 
by them is, indeed, remarkable. 

The formation of the Slavs into several 
nations distinct from each other is an accom- 
plished fact that cannot be undone. They are 
related to each other in about the same degree 
of kindred that unites people of the Latin or the 
German races. There is this difference, how- 
ever, that, while the Germans developed uni- 
formly, never having been checked or arrested 
in their growth by alien races hostile to civili- 
zation, — we allude to the Tatars who for cen- 
turies dominated Russia, and to the Turks, the 



16 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

evil masters of the Servians and Bulgarians, — 
the evolution of the Slavs was for these reasons 
slow and unequal. Even geographical condi- 
tions were against them, as any one can readily 
see by glancing at the map of Europe. It 
should also be borne in mind that, while the 
Latin and German peoples are free and inde- 
pendent, obeying no will but their own, a great 
many Slavic nations are controlled by sover- 
eign wills, not their own. 

The Bohemians or Cechs are now contend- 
ing with the Germans for equal rights, lingual 
and political, in the ancient Kingdom of 
Bohemia. 

The Slovenes aspire to the consolidation of 
southern Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and 
Trieste, in all of which provinces their lan- 
guage is spoken. Neighbors of two hostile 
races, the Germans and Italians, their posi-. 
tion is particularly trying. 

The Hungarian Slavs are oppressed more or 
less by the Magyars. Croatia and Slavonia, 
together forming a political unit with territorial 
autonomy inside the dominion of Hungary, 
enjoy privileges in regard to the use of their 
mother tongue that are denied to the Servians, 
Rusenes, and Slovaks. 

The position of the Poles is obviously peril- 



THE SLAVS 17 

ous. Of all the Slavs, they are losing most 
ground, and this is especially true of the Poles 
who were incorporated in Germany. Will 
these eventually meet the fate of the Obodri- 
tians and of the Lusatians ? 

The hour of deliverance from Turkish yoke 
has not yet come to all the Balkan Slavs. 
The Crnogorci (Montenegrins) and Servians 
are entirely free and independent ; the Bul- 
garians are nominally free. 

What remains of the once powerful nation 
of the Serbs, now confined to the two Lusa- 
tias, Upper and Lower, is doomed to perish 
sooner or later in the German sea that en- 
circles it on all sides. 



PANSLAVISM 

IN the St. Marx Cemetery in Vienna stands 
a simple marble shaft with this inscrip- 
tion : " Living, he bore the whole nation 
in his heart ; dead, he lives in the heart 
of the whole nation." 

This monument marks the resting-place of 
John Kollar (1793-1852), the " High Priest of 
Panslavism." By birth a Slovak, by affiliation 
a Bohemian, but by preference a " Slavonian 
patriot," Kollar devoted his whole life, or as 
much of it as his obligations to the Church 
allowed him, for he was a Lutheran minister, 
to the preaching of unity among Slavs. 
" What art thou ? A Russian ? What art 
thou ? A Servian ? What art thou ? I am a 
Pole ! My children, unity ! Let your answer 
be, I am a Slavonian." 

This Slavic unity, in literature at least, or 
" literary reciprocity," as he styled it, was the 
keynote, the ambition of his life. Why could 
not the Slavonians adopt a common medium 
of communication as the Germans have done ? 
To KollaYs mind the analogy between the two 

18 




JfcrtUUZ^ 



PANSLAVISM 



19 



great races, the German and the Slavonian, was 
complete, — and in this respect Kollar showed 
a judgment lamentably deficient. As a result 
of this cardinal error, the phantom confederacy 
which he had reared in his lyric-epic poem, 
Slavic? s Daughter, and in his Literary Red- 
procity failed to stand a practical test when 
the opportune time came. 

But in one regard the " High Priest of Pan- 
slavism " was eminently successful, and for this, 
if for nothing else, his name deserves to be 
remembered by posterity. He it was who first 
sought to inculcate in the Slavs the sentiment 
of " Slavonic patriotism." Moreover, by his 
prophecies, Kollar filled the Slavs with hope 
and confidence. If Isaiah was the oracle of 
the Hebrews, Kollar may be said to have been 
the seer of the Slavonians. To be sure, all 
his prophecies have not come true, but then 
the race, as a scholar of distinction expressed 
it, " has neither reached the flourishing con- 
dition of the Germans, nor is it decaying, but 
is the race of the future." 

In that part of Kollar s Slavids Daugh- 
ter which was published in 1824, we find 
these prophetic lines : 

"What will become of us Slavs a century 
hence ? 



20 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

What aspect will Europe wear then ? 
Flood-like, Slavic life will inundate all, 
Expanding its influence everywhere. 
And the tongue which was proclaimed to be 

the speech fit for slaves, according to the 

distorted judgment of the Germans, 
Will resound within the walls of palaces, 

issuing even out of the mouths of its very 

rivals. 
Sciences, too, will flow in Slavic moulds. 
The styles, customs, and songs of our 

people 
Will be mighty, alike on the Seine and on the 

Elbe." 

No wonder that Kollar tried to solace him- 
self with the future, for the present in which 
he lived was dark and unpromising enough. 
Safafik had counted seventy nine millions of 
Slavs in Europe in 1842, but almost as many 
bondsmen : Bohemia, the vanguard of the 
race, almost German ; the Illyrians talking 
Italian ; the Hungarian Slavonians, under the 
tutelage of the Magyars ; Servia and Bul- 
garia yet unborn ; the cultured classes in Po- 
land and Russia affecting French manners and 
language — it will be remembered that around 
Elizabeth's throne a whole generation grew 
up, French in thought and education, while 
under Catherine II. the aristocracy was more 



PANSLAVISM 21 

French than Russian ; many of the historical 
traditions forgotten during their long tenure of 
servitude, — well might the bard bewail the 
pitiable state of the Slavonians ! 

If Kollar earned for himself the title of 
" Arch - priest of Panslavism," Paul Joseph 
Safarik (i 795-1 86 1) deserves to be called a Sla- 
vonic Deucalion, because he peopled Austro- 
Hungary, Turkey, Russia, and Prussia with 
Slavonians where, before his time, there 
had lived subject races only. Like Kollar, 
Safarik was of Slovak extraction ; yet he felt 
himself to be a Bohemian, and he preferred to 
write in German. His Slavic Antiquities is a 
book which, to use Palackys words, "will live 
imperishable, continuing to yield bountiful 
fruit so long as the Slavonians and their his- 
tory shall endure." Of different temperaments 
and inclinations — Safarik was a scholar, exact 
and critical, while Kollar knew how to appeal 
to one's imagination through his passionate 
ardor, even though his arguments sometimes 
lacked in depth and discrimination, Safarik 
and Kollar both worked toward the same end, 
the first unconsciously, may be, but the other 
with a design. That end was Slavonic brother- 
hood, panslavism. 

Nationalization had come to the race later 



22 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

than to most European people. Although 
French thought in the eighteenth century 
dominated all Europe, and certain Slavonian 
scholars were thoroughly familiar with the 
labors of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rous- 
seau, yet it cannot be said that the national 
awakening of the Slavs was the work of the 
French. Paris was too remote from the Bo- 
hemian Forest, which marks the westernmost 
Slavonian line. The task of rousing the Slavs 
fell to their nearest neighbors, the Germans. 
Herder, Kant, Goethe, Lessing, and Schiller 
took their first lessons in the mental workshop 
of the philosophers on the Seine. In their 
turn, the Slavonians studied under the tutor- 
ship of these Germans. Though unknowingly, 
Herder sowed the first germ of panslavism. 
Herder's belief in the higher destiny of Slavoni- 
ans, not yet revealed, and his ideal humanity, 
captivated one after another every Slavic 
thinker of note. I n his Ideen zur Philosophie der 
Geschichte der Menschheit, Herder gave utter- 
ance to his now famous prophecy, that the 
Slavonians, until then held in a thraldom of 
oppression, would awaken from their lethargic 
sleep, and, freeing themselves from the shackles 
that bound them, would again recover the 
ownership of their vast domain, that stretched 



PANSLAVISM 23 

from the Adriatic Sea to the Baltic, and from 
the Don to the Mulda, and devote themselves, 
within the confines of this magnificent heri- 
tage, to the peaceful cultivation of the arts 
and commerce. Men like Dobrovsky, Safafik, 
Kollar, Palacky, Celakovsky. Surowiecki, 
Kopitar, and Jarnik at once ranged them- 
selves in support of Herder's theory, helping 
to disseminate it among their respective peo- 
ple. Those Slavic lands that lay nearest to 
Germany, or were tied to that country by his- 
torical associations in the past, naturally fell 
first under the Herderian spell. Not without 
interest is it that Leibnitz, on a certain occasion, 
addressed himself as a Slavonian to Peter the 
Great. The monarch and the philosopher met 
at Torgau in 1 713, and during a conversation 
Leibnitz said to Peter : " We are both of Slavic 
ancestry. You have wrested the world's 
mightiest power from barbarism, and I have 
founded a realm of equal extent. The origina- 
tors of a new epoch, we are both descendants 
of that race whose fortunes none can foretell." 
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
the work of nationalization had already made 
startling progress. Every new book that left 
the printing-press, be its theme Slavic phil- 
ology or history, only made more apparent 



24 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

the close relationship that existed between the 
Russian muzhik and the Bohemian peasant, 
the Servian shepherd and the Dalmatian 
fisherman. Simultaneously the discovery was 
made that, with the exception of Russia, every 
Slavic country suffered more or less from the 
oppression of foreign masters, while two or 
three were threatened with absorption by 
other races. With such gloomy prospects be- 
fore them, it was only natural that the smaller 
nations, anxious to save themselves, conceived 
the idea of a confederation. The reasoning was 
perfectly logical. In unity lay strength and 
power, as the Germans had demonstrated ; in 
separation, the doom of the Polabians and 
Lusatian Serbs, now almost wholly extinct, 
awaited the Slavs. Chief in this movement 
toward confederation were the Bohemians — 
the most advanced of all the Slavic races, but 
at the same time the most exposed to the 
perils of denationalization. In this way the 
Bohemians earned for themselves the title of 
" Apostles of Panslavism." 

One of the first, if not the very first, to 
make an issue of panslavism, or Slavic reci- 
procity, that being a more accurate term, was 
Joseph Dobrovskjr (i 753-1829). Studies in 
Slavic languages had drawn him to this capti- 



PANSLAVISM 25 

vating subject. Dobrovsky was conscious and 
proud of his Bohemian ancestry, but he de- 
spaired of the future of his nation. As Bo- 
hemians, his countrymen were fated to die, he 
thought ; as Slavonians, they might survive. 
Hence he sought and found consolation in 
panslavism. The extent of the Slavic lands 
inspired Dobrovsky. Reasoning further, he 
came to the conclusion that the Slavs, like the 
Germans, should adopt one common tongue. 
In course of time they might even succeed 
in building up a confederacy. Another Bo- 
hemian writer who found comfort and assur- 
ance in Slavic fraternity was Joseph Jungmann. 
Like Dobrovsky, he, too, believed it to be a 
hopeless undertaking to try to resuscitate the 
Bohemian nation, then almost wholly Ger- 
manized. Toward Russia, which was powerful 
enough to conquer a Napoleon, Jungmann 
turned his hopeful gaze. Slavonians, he as- 
sured himself, should form a lingual union and 
select as a common language the Russian, 
that being the tongue of the strongest branch 
of the race. Jungmann's views, it may be 
said, were shared by the majority of the Bo- 
hemian patriots of that time. Kopitar, a noted 
Slovene author, advocated the founding of a 
Slavic Academy of Sciences in Vienna, and 



26 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

he made other suggestions that clearly mark 
him the precursor of John Kollar. 

Meantime a current of nationalism had 
swept over the face of Germany. In schools, 
literature, public press, and secret societies a 
war, bitter and uncompromising, had been de- 
clared against everything French. " Union and 
Liberty " were the watchwords that went the 
length and breadth of the fatherland. " When 
united, Germans were never defeated ; dis- 
united, always." This was the trend of Ger- 
man reasoning. Of this teaching the university 
at Jena was the recognized centre. Safarik 
and Kolldr studied in this school. Already 
before their coming to Jena both Safarik and 
Kollar were ardent nationalists. Jungmann, 
the Nestor of Bohemian letters, had fired their 
souls with notions of Slavonic brotherhood. 
During their stay at the university, and under 
its immediate influence, these sentiments were 
probably crystallized. Quite possibly it was 
at Jena that the two Slovaks conceived the 
ambitious plan of doing for the Slavonians 
what Lessing, Herder, Schiller, and Goethe 
were doing for the Germans. Be it as it may, 
certain it is that Safarik and Kolldr left the 
university thoroughly convinced that what was 
good for the Germans must be equally bene- 



PANSLAVISM 27 

ficial for the Slavonians, and that if the Ger- 
mans clamored for " Union and Liberty," the 
Slavic nations must similarly seek unity among 
themselves. His ideas on the subject Kollar 
explained at length in a work written in Ger- 
man in 1837, and entitled On Literary Re- 
ciprocity among the Various Branches and 
the Idioms of the Slavic Nation} No new 
ideas were contained in the book, — nothing 
that had not been brought out by other Slavists, 
or that had not been proposed or commented 
upon by them in newspaper articles or private 
correspondence or confidential discussions. 
To Kollar, however, belonged the credit of 
having reduced to a system the material which 
had been accumulated by his predecessors and 
contemporaries. His notion of Slavonic reci- 
procity and fraternity was after the pattern 
of other writers. He essayed to make the 
weak strong by the simple process of associa- 
tion. Literary reciprocity, as planned by him, 
would not disturb established institutions, 
either of State or Church ; above all, it would 
not lead to the fusion of the various Slavic 
dialects into a common literary language. All 
that it required was that a Slavonian who had 

1 Ueber dieliterarische Wechselseitigkeit zwischen den verse hiedenen 
Sldmmen und Mundarten der Slavischen Nation. 



28 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

attained what the writer designated the first 
decree of culture should learn four idioms — 
namely, Russian, Illyrian (Servo-Croatian), 
Polish, and Bohemian. Reaching the second 
degree, our Slavonian should already be able 
to command other dialects and sub-dialects ; 
while he who had elevated himself to the third 
or last class should show familiarity with all 
the Slavic idioms without exception. In all 
cases this knowledge should be lexicographi- 
cal at least. Benefits from such literary reci- 
procity would be many. The more powerful 
branches of the Slavic family would in this 
manner be constantly reminded of the exist- 
ence of their weaker kinsmen. To smaller 
branches, reciprocity would impart strength 
and assurance ; as long as their mother tongue 
survived, they would be safe and secure, even 
though their sovereignty might be lost. All 
tendencies at separation should be combated 
and suppressed. Reciprocity indicated to 
Slavonians the way to their great mission 
among the nations of the earth. Belated as 
had been their appearance on the stage of 
world's affairs, nevertheless a glorious future 
was in store for them. Even the ways and 
means whereby he hoped to accomplish his 
purpose were set down by the author. Among 



PANSLAVISM 29 

others, he would open bookstores making a 
specialty of Slavic literature in Slavic capitals, 
establish chairs of Slavic languages, found 
circulating libraries, publish panslavic reviews, 
compile comparative grammars, and edit folk- 
songs. Foreign phrases and expressions he 
would eliminate gradually, replacing them with 
pure Slavic words, to the end that the race 
might sooner reach the goal of a panslavic 
tongue — a tongue which should be readily in- 
telligible to all Slavs of whatsoever branch. 

Kollar's panslavistic teachings, as expounded 
in Literary Reciprocity, and in Slavids Daugh- 
ter, made a great stir in Europe. Many there 
were who acclaimed them the " Slavic Evan- 
gel," while non-Slavonians, and of those 
particularly Austrian Germans and Magyars, 
assailed the author, condemning his theories 
as dangerous and subversive. 

The South Slavonians espoused the cause 
of Slavonic reciprocity. However, Ljudevit 
Gaj (1 809-1 872), their brilliant leader, believed 
that the unity of his own countrymen, who 
were divided by religious differences, should 
precede the larger union of all the Slavs. 
With this object in view, Gaj worked for the 
creation of Greater Illyria, which should in- 
clude all the South Slavic races, known by 



3 o THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

their tribal names of Slovenes, Croatians, Sla- 
vonians, Dalmatians, Bosnians, Crnogorci 
(Montenegrins), Servians, and Bulgarians. 

The Slovaks more than any other people 
were charmed with the lessons of the new 
evangel. Kollar and Safarik were their fellow- 
countrymen, a circumstance that insured in- 
dulgent criticism for them, to say the least. 
But, aside from this, there was another and 
deeper consideration that prompted them to 
embrace Kollar's faith. To them, threatened 
as they were by the Magyars, the union of the 
Slavonians promised security. Hence we see 
that in the early thirties almost all educated 
Slovaks rallied around KollaYs banner. 

Through students attending the seminaries 
at Prague, Kollar's panslavism filtered among 
what there was left of the Lusatian Serbs. 
John E. Smoler and J. P. Jordan became the 
acknowledged leaders at home. 

Under Alexander I. of Russia even the 
Poles cherished the hope that the Slavs might 
eventually group themselves around Russia. 
Prince Adam Czartoryjski, it is related on 
good authority, never ceased to remind that 
democratic and enlightened monarch that 
Russia should re - establish Poland. After 
Napoleon I. had broken his promises to them, 




J^ J J&e/ sg/a/xri/fe. 




PANSLAVISM 31 

the Poles more than ever clung to Russia. 
Stanislaw Staszic expressed the wish that 
Russia would begin the great work of re- 
demption of the Slavs by the upbuilding of 
Poland. When Alexander died, in 1825, and 
Nicholas I. succeeded him on the Russian 
throne, the Poles lost faith in the rectitude of 
Russia's intentions. Only those of them that 
lived under the Austrian Government sympa- 
thized with KollaYs ideas. 

The Bulgarians prior to 1848 were all but 
unknown, and, singularly enough, the " Arch- 
priest of Panslavism " had forgotten them 
entirely. For a long time the Bulgarians con- 
tinued to be an enigma to the rest of the 
Slavs. Dobrovsky mistakenly thought that 
Bulgarian was a dialect of the Servian. Kopitar 
could throw but a feeble light on their lan- 
guage in 18 1 5, and even Safafik was unable to 
describe their exact location or state their 
numbers in his ethnography. A Moscow 
newspaper as late as 1827 manifested honest 
surprise that there should live a Christian 
people in European Turkey, speaking an un- 
known tongue that much resembled in sound 
the Old Church Slavic. 

When, after the downfall of Napoleon I., 
Alexander I. of Russia committed himself to 



32 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

the adventurous fancy of a universal monarchy 
such as the bold Corsican had planned but 
failed to realize, the Russian court sought to 
win the good-will of the rest of the Slavo- 
nians to that scheme. V. N. Karazin, the 
author, in 1804 called the court's attention to 
the wretched condition of some of the smaller 
Slavic nations, and when the Servians appealed 
to Russia for aid, he implored the Emperor, 
in the name of the common ancestry and 
faith which united the two peoples together, 
to render the help needed. Indeed, this com- 
munity of faith and origin played an all-im- 
porant role in all the ensuing wars between 
the Slav and the Turk. Panslavism was at 
one time propagated by a class of vision- 
aries in Russia during Alexander I. 's reign, 
who banded themselves into secret societies 
for that purpose. Of this class was a " Soci- 
ety of United Slavonians," founded in 1823, 
which hoped to unite the Slavonians into 
a confederacy. Russia, Poland, Bohemia, 
Moravia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Hungary 
were to be welded into one government, the 
representatives of which were to have resided 
in a capital centrally located. Alexander's 
successor suppressed this and other similar 
societies, being opposed on principle to every 



» 190 





PANSLAVISM 33 

radical change or opinion. When Michael 
Pogodin returned home from his journeys in 
Slavic countries (1842) the idea of Slavonic 
reciprocity more than ever began to engross 
public attention in Russia. What Kollar 
recommended as to the publication of a Slavic 
review, founding of libraries, bookstores, etc., 
Pogodin urged the Russian Government to do 
at its own expense. Later the term " Slavo- 
philes " was given by way of distinction to those 
of the Russian leaders who interested them- 
selves in any way in the western Slavs. The 
names of Hilferding, Lamanskij, Aksakov, and 
others are widely known in this connection. 

But, while universally popular, it could not 
be said that KollaYs all-Slavic ideas were 
unanimously approved. At first opponents 
were few. Charles Havlicek, the fearless Bo- 
hemian publicist, was the first to raise a dis- 
senting voice. " Slavonians," wrote Havlicek, 

"do not constitute one nation but are divided 
in four nations, each being as independent and 
distinct from the others as any European 
nation. Each branch stands by itself, for good 
or evil ; neither glory nor dishonor is theirs in 
common. Because of the great similarity of 
Slavic idioms, it is both useful and necessary 
for the different Slavic nations to keep up an 



34 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

active literary fellowship and to draw recipro- 
cally from the literary treasures of all. As 
matters now are, the Bohemians and Illyrians 
are the only ones who are in position to bene- 
fit one another, their interests not clashing. 
. . . . For all Slavs to have a common 
literary language is impossible, and endeavors 
toward that end are senseless. Let no one 
point to the Germans, now wedded to a com- 
mon literature, though greater dialectic dif- 
ferences separate them than us Slavonians. 
Among Germans, political unity dates back to 
earlier times, and the conditions which were 
instrumental in creating uniformity of letters 
are wanting among Slavonians. In short, I 
shall proudly say ' I am a Bohemian,' but 
never ' I am a Slavonian.' Whenever I call 
myself a Slavonian, I shall always mean it in 
an abstract sense, geographically or ethno- 
graphically. Slavonians have four fatherlands 
and not one ; Slavonic patriotism is only a 
shade better than cosmopolitanism." 

In 1848 panslavism had reached a new stage 
of development. Hitherto it had found ex- 
pression solely in literature ; now the time had 
come to subject it to a practical test. A revo- 
lutionary storm had begun to gather in Austria. 

The first clash between the Slav and the 
Teuton came when the Germans, yielding to 
the popular demand for " Ein freies, einiges 



PANSLAVISM 35 

Vaterland," met in Frankfort, in March, 1848, 
and invited the Austrian people to send repre- 
sentatives to their parliament. Austria was 
not German, and the Slavonians, who constitu- 
ted a majority in that empire, resented the idea 
of being incorporated in the new " Deutsches 
Reich." As planned by the Frankfort Diet, 
Greater Germany was to have included Bohe- 
mia, Silesia, Moravia, and Illyria — lands inhab- 
ited by Slavonians. The nations living in the 
Hapsburg monarchy promptly took issue on 
the Frankfort Parliament. As a rule, the Aus- 
trian Germans were in favor of sending depu- 
ties there ; the Slavonians for the same reason 
bitterly opposed it. The Vienna Government 
did not know what to do. In one sense partial 
to the Frankfort Parliament, in another it felt 
distrust. While anxious to have a deciding 
voice there, Minister Ficquelmont feared 
that, eventually, Frankfort might defeat him 
at home. He had no objection to Austrians 
taking part in the election, if he could control 
it. With unrestricted suffrage, the probabilities 
were that the majority of electors would vote 
for a republic. " Let us remain Germans, while 
continuing to be Austrians," declared Ficquel- 
mont in a burst of wise patriotism. A situa- 
tion bordering on anarchy was produced, when 



36 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

the ministry at last made public its decision 
that it would neither order the election nor yet 
prohibit it, but would leave the right to vote 
or not to vote to the discretion of each citizen. 
On April 10, 1848, Francis Palacky, the Bo- 
hemian historian, received an invitation to take 
part in the deliberations of the parliament. 
Unhesitatingly Palacky declined the honor. 
On the following day, April nth, his letter 
had already left Prague. The document was 
worthy of that great historian's reputation. 
Palacky 1 well knew that his letter to the pre- 
siding officer of the diet, Soiron, must be broad 
enough to speak for all the Austrian Slavs, 
whom the government was either unwilling or 
unable to protect. " I am a Bohemian of Slavic 
origin," wrote he to Frankfort, " and whatever 
I now possess or may yet own I have conse- 
crated wholly and forever to the good of my 
nation. Small in numbers is this nation, yet 
since time immemorial it has maintained its 
individuality and sovereignty; true, its rulers 
have for ages been parties to the league of 
German princes, but the nation has never re- 
garded itself as one with the German nation, 
nor have others classed it as such during all 
these centuries. The relations of Bohemia, 
such as they were, first with the Holy German 



PANSLAVISM 37 

Empire and thereafter with the Bund, were 
always a pure formality of which the Bohemian 
people and their Estates took little or no 
notice. ... It is a matter of public know- 
ledge that German Emperors, as such, had no 
relations with the Bohemian nation ; that they 
were not vested with any rights in or over 
Bohemia, either legislative, judicial or execu- 
tive ; that at no time had they the power to 
levy armies or order contributions of any kind; 
that Bohemia, including her crown-lands, never 
formed part or parcel of any of the ten German 
states of those times ; that the mandates of the 
highest court of the realm did not apply there ; 
in fine, that the past connection between Bo- 
hemia and the German Empire should be re- 
garded not in the nature of a union between 
nations, but as a league between rulers. Who- 
ever now urges that this league of princes 
should give room to a union between the Bohe- 
mian and German nations, advances a new 
postulate, utterly at variance with the past." 

The diet at Frankfort was still in session 
when the following proclamation appeared in 
Slavonic newspapers published in Austria : 

" Desirous of unity, the Germans have 
summoned to meet at Frankfort a parliament 



38 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

which calls on the Austrian monarchy to sur- 
render so much of its independence as is in- 
dispensable to German plans, requesting it, 
furthermore, to join the Germanic Empire with 
all its lands, excepting Hungary. Such a step 
would not only result in the disruption of Aus- 
tria, but would, at the same time, bring about 
the isolation and effacement of the Slavic 
races and imperil their nationality. Duty im- 
poses it upon us to bravely defend that which 
is most holy to us. The time has arrived for 
us Slavonians to meet in conference and agree 
on a common cause of action. Therefore, in 
response to numerous calls addressed to us 
from several Slavic lands, we hereby take pleas- 
ure in inviting all Slavonians from Austria, 
urging especially men who enjoy the confi- 
dence of their people and who have the welfare 
of the public at heart, to meet in the ancient 
Slavonic Prague of Bohemia on the 31st day 
of May of this year, to the end that we may 
jointly take counsel on all matters pertaining 
to the well-being of our nations and which the 
exigencies of these troublous times require. 
Slavonians living without the boundaries of 
the monarchy who may desire to honor us 
with their presence will be cordially welcome 
as guests. Prague, May 1, 1848." 

Signed to the proclamation were the names 
of men eminent in letters and public life. 
Who first conceived the idea of a panslavic 



PANSLAVISM 39 

congress ? It was said that it emanated from 
the pen of a Croatian journalist by the name 
of Ivan Kukuljevic — a warm advocate of Kol- 
lar's panslavism. Be this as it may, the sug- 
gestion met with instant favor : as a retaliatory 
measure against Frankfort, and as a warning 
to Germans and Magyars to cease persecut- 
ing the Slavonians, the congress promised 
to relieve a situation that seemed wellnigh 
intolerable. By June 2d, when it was form- 
ally opened, there were in Prague, to attend 
the congress, 42 deputies from South Slavic 
countries, 61 Poles and Little Russians from 
Galicia, and 237 Bohemians, Moravians, and 
Slovaks. 

It will be noticed that the committee on 
arrangements, in sending out invitations, drew 
a fine distinction between Austrian Slavonians 
and Slavs in general. The first-named alone 
were eligible to membership ; non-Austrian 
Slavs were to be received as guests only. 
This was by no means unintentional. The 
Bohemians who were heading the movement 
were everywhere being made out to be rabid 
Russophiles, and unless the congress was to 
stand accused, justly or unjustly, before Eu- 
rope, of making propaganda for the Tsar, pru- 
dence and tact made this restriction imperative. 



4 o THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

None the less the promoters were overwhelmed 
with abuse from the Magyars, hemmed in as 
they were by disaffected Slavic populations, 
and by the partisans of Frankfort, the latter 
asserting that the Slavs were about to set up 
an opposition " Slavonic Confederacy," to with- 
stand their Germanic Empire. Document- 
ary proof is extant to show that, acting on 
Kossuth's advice, Premier Batthyany lodged a 
protest in Vienna, in the name of the Hunga- 
rian Government, against the congress taking 
place. Failing to prevent it altogether, Eszter- 
hazy, who represented the Hungarians in the 
capital of the monarchy, was to have devised a 
plan, with the co-operation of the Vienna Gov- 
ernment, whereby the gathering might be 
made to appear before the world as a sort of 
Bohemian provincial diet. At any rate the 
Poles from Galicia were to be deterred, either 
by threats or promises, from going to Prague. 
How the congress alarmed the Magyars and 
how furiously opposed they were to it is proved 
by the letters of Kollar and Wett, now on file 
in the land archives at Prague. Under date 
of June i, 1848, J. Wett writes from Pest: 
" Great was our joy that we might all meet in 
Prague on May 31st. However, the moment 
our Pest newspapers printed an account of the 



PANSLAVISM 41 

congress, threats of the most violent nature 
were made by the Magyar public against Kol- 
lar ; he was given to understand that if he 
ventured to go to Prague, it would cost him 
his life." In a tearful letter, bearing the same 
date, Kollar excused himself to Palacky for his 
inability to attend : " A few days ago a Mag- 
yar soldier sent a message to me through the 
regimental bandmaster to the effect that he 
would shoot me on sight if I went to the 
congress." 

Preparatory labors being finished, the very 
first business of the congress was to issue a 
manifesto to European nations. " The Pan- 
slavic Congress now convened in Prague," 
says this manifesto, " is a novel occurrence in 
Europe and a new experience for us Slavoni- 
ans. For the first time since history mentions 
our name, the scattered members of this wide- 
spread family of nations have congregated in 
larger numbers from distant lands, that we 
might become better acquainted among our- 
selves and might peacefully and like brothers, 
as we are, deliberate on affairs that concern us 
all alike. Not only have we succeeded in mak- 
ing ourselves understood, as far as concerns 
our melodious language, spoken by eighty 
millions of people, but also by our hearts 



42 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

beating in unison and by the sameness of our 
intellectual aims." Continuing, the manifesto 
explains the difference in the past between the 
Germans and Latins, invariably bent on con- 
quest, and the peace-loving Slavonians who, 
one after another, were deprived of freedom 
and independence, but now, when the old order 
of things is about to pass away, have stepped 
forward to reclaim their lost heritage of free- 
dom — freedom for all, irrespective of caste or 
race. " Liberty, equality and fraternity of 
every citizen is again our motto as it was a 
thousand years ago." The manifesto defends 
the principle of equal rights before the law ; 
reproves the Germans and Magyars for their 
contemptuous claim to superiority over the 
Slavonians ; repudiates the charge of " political 
panslavism," the spectre which had been in- 
vented by malicious people for the obvious 
purpose of discrediting the congress before 
Europe, but against which the remedy is sim- 
ple — justice to Slavic people ; makes a digni- 
fied yet forcible appeal to Prussia to desist in 
her cruel persecution of Poles and of Lusatian 
Serbs ; remonstrates with the Magyars for de- 
nying equal rights to Hungarian Slavonians ; 
gives expression to the hope that kinsmen 
groaning under Turkish despotism might soon 



PANSLAVISM 43 

be freed. In conclusion the manifesto moves 
the establishment of a recurrent tribunal of 
nations for the peaceful settlement of all in- 
ternational disputes, thus foreshadowing The 
Hague Tribunal. 

Among the labors that were left unfinished 
was a petition to the Hapsburg ruler. This 
demanded the reconstruction of Austria as a 
federal empire, which alone is capable of guar- 
anteeing the sovereignty and inviolability of 
the many races living there. The meddling 
of Germans— this referred to the Frankfort 
Diet — in Austrian home affairs should neither 
be encouraged nor tolerated. What the Sla- 
vonians contend for is a powerful, sovereign 
Austrian state. 

A multitude of other motions and propo- 
sitions remained equally uncompleted, for on 
June 1 2th, exactly ten days after it had been 
opened, the congress came to a sudden and 
unexpected close. Prague was plunged in the 
throes of a revolution. 

u The ' Bloody Easter Week' that followed 
interrupted the work of the Slavic Congress," 
comments a noted Bohemian. " The dele- 
gates dispersed, some of them being ordered 
away, others leaving voluntarily, because it was 
inadvisable to continue in their work in a city 



44 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

under martial law. For this reason, and no 
other, further sittings were discontinued, the 
congress terminating abruptly. However, 
these events only suspended its deliberations, 
failing to defeat them. Not one of the dele- 
gates in attendance, much less the municipal 
bodies and people electing them, relinquished 
the object before them : to make effectual 
and final the unification of the Slavonians who 
come under the Austrian rule ; to secure for 
Slavonians, in accordance with the grand prin- 
ciple of equality of nations, those rights, invio- 
late and inviolable, that are by nature inherent 
in all people alike ; to elevate the Austrian 
Slavs to that degree of worth that is theirs by 
reason of their culture and numerical strength, 
as compared with the other natives of Austria. 
The Slavic Congress was intended to lay the 
first corner-stone of this new policy of brother- 
hood. The fact that it was interrupted by 
untoward, uncontrollable circumstances, due to 
the plottings of enemies, does not justify the 
assumption that the cause was either aban- 
doned or that the deliberations were in vain, 
just as the happenings in Prague had not put 
a bar to the great mission of the Slavs among 
civilized mankind, nor diminished the weight 
of the Slavs in Austria in particular. Agree- 
ably to an expressed wish of the departing 
delegates the congress was only adjourned, to 
reconvene at some future time, to finish what 
it had been prevented from doing at its first 
session." 



PANSLAVISM 45 

Although none of the plans of the congress 
were put into execution, still it cannot be said 
that it was wholly without result. The good 
fellowship formed at Prague continued there- 
after to be a fountain of hope and force to Aus- 
tro-Slavism. Nor was this the last meeting of 
Slavonians. Once grown intimate, the newly- 
found relatives have never again allowed 
themselves to lose sight of each other. The 
next gathering of note took place in Moscow, 
Russia, in 1867, on the occasion of the Ethno- 
graphic Exhibition, held in that city. Except- 
ing the Poles, representatives of the entire 
Slavonic family were present at that meeting. 
And because the exhibition at Moscow hap- 
pened to take place in the same year in which 
dualism had been first put in operation in 
Austria, whereby Magyars and Germans fondly 
hoped to make lasting their hegemony over 
the Slavonians, a hostile press saw more than 
a mere coincidence in this. It was represented 
as a threat aimed at Austria. Kollar's phan- 
tom Slavonic confederacy again began to cast 
its shadows over Central Europe and to plague 
the consciences of statesmen. The Bohemian 
delegates to Moscow, among whom were Fran- 
cis Palacky, Francis L. Rieger, Dr. Brauner, 
Charles Jaromir Erben, Baron Villani, Julius 



46 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Gregr, and Joseph Manes, were publicly 
charged with treason. Shortly before his 
death, Rieger, the venerable leader of the 
Bohemians, then in his eighty-third year, said, 
apropos of this shameful calumny, in a lecture 
which he delivered before the " Slavic Club" 
in Prague : 

" What is the signification of Slavonic re- 
ciprocity ? Our enemies have invented the 
word ' panslavism ' for it, and persistently 
claim that we contemplate the founding of a 
Slavonic confederacy, under Russian protec- 
tion. Such a contention is manifestly false 
and absurd. Only the other day a Vienna 
newspaper criticised me bitterly for having 
attended the Moscow exhibition in 1867. Can- 
not an intelligent person go to any exposi- 
tion he pleases ? If I live thirty years longer I 
shall still be reproved for making the journey, 
I believe. At the banquet at Sokolinky, near 
Moscow, where I spoke, I made it known in 
no uncertain language that a Slavic confed- 
eracy was out of question. Slavonic States — 
I repeat what I had said then — must be like 
so many chimes ringing in harmony." 

At this same ethnographical exhibition Rie- 
ger declared emphatically that, 

" in fraternizing, the Slavs had no politi- 
cal objects in view. The ideals which were 



PANSLAVISM 47 

agitating them were not and must not be 
inimical to the peace of other nations. As 
always, it is still true that whatever there is in 
panslavism of a political nature is due to dis- 
satisfaction of some sort or other. Remove 
that, and panslavism will have no reason to 
exist." 

In conclusion, let us say a few words about 
panslavism in Hungary, with special relation 
to the Slovaks. 

To begin with, every Magyar's political 
education includes a belief in panslavism. A 
thousand years have elapsed since the wreck- 
ing of the Great Moravian Kingdom on the 
fields of Pressburg, but patriotic Magyars still 
see Svatopluk's ghost hovering over that 
monarch's former domains. According to a 
popular theory, prevalent among them, pan- 
slavism is a dangerous political movement, 
which is directed not only against the crown 
of St. Stephen but against Austria and Turkey 
as well. If a person reads a Slovak newspaper, 
or salutes a stranger with " dobry den," instead 
of the Magyar " jo napot," he stands self-con- 
victed of being a panslav ! 

At a recent trial of a prominent Slovak 
journalist for political libel, an intelligent wit- 
ness for the prosecution was asked as to his 



48 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

understanding of the term "panslav." The 
answer of the witness was that a panslav was 
one who did not feel himself a Magyar at 
heart. A professor of jurisprudence defined 
panslav as a person who was regarded as such 
in the community in which he lived. At the 
same trial, the attorney for the defendant, 
Isidor Ziak, made a remarkable plea for his 
client : 

" Gentlemen of the jury, the verdict you 
render in this case will be watched with breath- 
less interest by thousands, nay, millions, of 
Slovaks. Baron Eotvos has said that one may 
live without happiness, but not without hope. 
What a splendid opportunity you have, gentle- 
men of the jury, to rekindle this hope, now 
almost dead, in the breasts of the Slovaks by 
acquitting their beloved writer. But the real- 
ity is sad, and though it may be customary 
among lawyers to plead for mercy for clients 
who stand accused of heinous crimes, I shall 
not make such an appeal to you ; for, having 
lost all, let it not be said of us that we have 
begged in places where justice and mercy do 
not exist for us." 

And the unfortunate journalist was convicted, 
not because he was guilty, unless it be guilt to 
love and cherish one's native tongue, but be- 
cause he was a panslav ! 



PANSLAVISM 49 

Recently a troupe of Bohemian actors from 
Moravia made an attempt to play at Kosice 
(Kassa) in Upper Hungary, but the local 
press saw a dangerous panslavist agitation 
in the performance and the manager was re- 
fused the necessary license. For the same 
reason, panslavism, the choir-master at Kosice 
was forbidden to render in the church Anton 
Dvorak's beautiful Stabat Mater. Very no- 
torious is the case of Rev. John Skultety, 
who was disciplined by his bishop for having 
baptized a child by the name of " Cyril." The 
bishop had no fault to find with Cyril as a 
saint, he said, but he would not tolerate, in his 
diocese, the baptism of children by the name 
of panslavic saints. Skultety's argument that 
the child received the name of Cyril because it 
had been born on that saint's day was futile, 
and that the Cyril chosen by him was not the 
great panslavic Apostle Cyril ; the bishop re- 
mained obdurate ! A student in a seminary 
who may be fond of Slovak literature is in 
imminent danger of being expelled for pan- 
slavist cabals ; likewise a teacher's career is 
blasted and his name entered on the black list 
of panslavs the moment he begins to be sus- 
pected of writing, even clandestinely and under 
a pseudonym, for Slovak publications. 



50 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Magyars like to point to Gabriel Ugron's 
utterance in the land diet to the effect that 
" the trees of all the races in the Hapsburg 
monarchy are planted in other countries than 
Austria, and that, having no kinsmen in Eu- 
rope, the Magyars are the only people who are 
destined to live and to die there." The in- 
stinct of self-preservation tells them to stand 
by the empire. Should they become disloyal 
to it, that moment the dynasty of the Haps- 
burgs is doomed to fall. History, they claim, 
has assigned to them the task of stemming 
the aggression of the Slavs, just as in the past 
they formed a bulwark against the Turks. 

Let us reason a little. If it be true, as 
Ugron contends, that the various nationalities 
of which Austro-Hungary is composed have a 
tendency to gravitate outside the boundaries 
of that monarchy, and that, for instance, the 
Germans wink at Berlin and Vienna, that the 
Servians look for sympathy to Belgrade, and 
the Rumuns court the favor of Bucharest, 
whither do the Slovaks gravitate ? Toward 
the Bohemians, who are their nearest and 
most natural allies ? Certainly not. To prove 
the truth of this statement one only needs to 
mention their separation from Bohemian 
literature. Do they seek their centre in St. 



PANSLAVISM 51 

Petersburg ? For centuries the Slovaks have 
inhabited Hungary, admittedly longer than 
the Magyars themselves, have fought and 
bled in defence of the fatherland jointly with 
others of their fellow-citizens. Yet, how many 
plots are charged to them to further the alleged 
cause of panslavism? Not one. Prosecuting 
attorneys, when trying journalists for political 
libel, are in the habit of making sinister allu- 
sions to Russian subsidies. Have these base 
insinuations ever been substantiated with 
proof ? 

" False, one and all, are the accusations that 
Slovak nationalists are in communication, in 
any way, with any of the Slavic committees, or 
that they receive pecuniary aid from them," 
angrily retorted Paul Mudrofi, on one occasion. 
" If there were an iota of truth in all this, why 
should the Slovak journals all suffer for lack of 
funds?" 

But did not the teachings of Kollar, Sa- 
fafik, Hodza, Stiir, Hurban, and of the other 
panslavs lead the Slovaks to revolt against 
Magyar intolerance in 1848 ? Yes. However, 
it is equally a matter of common knowledge, 
even though one may not read of it in Hunga- 
rian history, that Kossuth issued an ultimatum 



52 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

to the Hungarian Slavs in his organ, the Pesti 
Hirlap, that whatever rights they claimed to 
have in the kingdom they must make good, 
swori in hand. Was there any alternative 
left after this challenge but to resort to arms ? 
The Slovaks have time and again sent dele- 
gates to the periodical gatherings of Slavoni- 
ans, and this, too, is brought against them as 
evidence of panslavism and disloyalty. Since 
when is it wrong to yield to the natural 
promptings of fraternity and consanguinity? 
Surely, it is not in the province of any tempo- 
ral power to repress that inborn feeling. 



THE SLOVAKS: PAST AND PRES- 
ENT. 

HUNGARY is now, and has been for cen- 
turies, a multi-national country. Owing 
to its proximity to the Roman Empire, of 
which at one time it constituted a province, 
it was the stamping ground of many barbar- 
ous nations. The Huns, Goths, Gepidae, Lom- 
bards, and Avars occupied it successively. 
Now, Magyars, Slavonians, Germans, and Ru- 
muns jostle one another there. Until recently 
no one race had an absolute majority, which is 
very strange indeed, considering the length of 
time each had been domiciled there. 

If we concede the claims of the Rumuns, 
whose main strength is in Transylvania, that 
they are the descendants of Roman colonists 
and of Romanized natives, they may be re- 
garded as the most ancient living nation in 
Hungary. Next to the Rumuns in point of 
antiquity come the Slavonians, known as Slo- 
vaks in the northwest, as Croatians and Servi- 
ans in the south, between the rivers Drave and 

53 



54 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Save, and as Slovenes (Slovinci), sometimes 
called Wends, 1 in the west. To be sure, there 
were scattered settlements of Germans in the 
country as early as the Slavonians, but the 
bulk of the German colonists arrived in com- 
paratively recent times, after the expulsion of 
the Tatars and Turks. The same may be said 
of the Little Russians whose coming is assigned 
to the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. 

"What do we know of Slovak history? 
Very little. Beginning with the Hussite 
wars, our knowledge is somewhat more accu- 
rate. But before the days of the Hussites, 
that is, before the fifteenth century, the past 
seems securely hidden. And yet the Slovak 
people had lived over a thousand years in their 
fatherland before the outbreak of the Hussite 
wars." 

Such is the mournful admission of Prof. 
Pastrnek, a noted scholar. 

There was a time when Slovakland was pro- 
claimed the cradle of the Slavic race, the lan- 
guage spoken there the nearest approach to 
the Old Slavic, and its people the autochthon- 
ous inhabitants of Hungary. Recent investiga- 
tions have, however, failed to sustain any of 

*Also incorrectly designated as Winds and Windisch, but since 
1848 officially termed Slowenen, Slovenes, Slovinci. 



PAST AND PRESENT 55 

these high claims and contentions. " To-day 
it is agreed," says Niederle, " that the seat of 
the aboriginal Slavs must be looked for in 
Transcarpathia, in the region bounded by the 
rivers Vistula and Dnieper." Even the belief 
in the antiquity of the Slovak dialect is not 
shared by modern scholars. Some time in 
the fifth century the Bohemians and Moravians 
left their ancient abodes, in White Croatia, 
moving west. Their nearest kinsmen, the Slo- 
vaks, followed them, taking, however, a more 
southerly course that led them along the 
rivers Morava (March), Vah (Vag) and Hron 
(Gran), down to the Danube. 1 

Here they seized the land that had been 
abandoned by the Gepidae, the Heruli, and the 
Rugi, which they have held continuously ever 

1 " I am really convinced," says Prof. Niederle, " that the Slavoni- 
ans entered Hungary from the north some time before the fourth and 
fifth centuries, and if the hypothesis which is being accepted more 
and more by west Slavonian archaeologists is correct, namely, that 
the burial grounds known as urn fields, of the Lusatian-Silesian type 
and which are common throughout eastern Germany of old, are evi- 
dences of Slavonian culture, marking the footprints, so to say, of 
Slavonians advancing toward Germany, then in that case we should 
be justified in assigning the arrival of the Slavonians from Transcar- 
pathia to Slovakland to prehistoric times. For in Slovakland, too, 
finds of the same kind have been made: burial grounds near Puchov 
(Pucho), Domanik (Domehaza), Medovarce (Meznevelo), and Lisov 
(Liso). The existence of these grounds proves that those who made 
them have advanced in pre-Christian times from the Vistula to the 
valley of the Vah and of the Hron as far as Hont County." 



56 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

since. Slovensko, the Land of the Slovaks, is 
first referred to by name in 860 by King 
Lewis. 1 At present, — the ethnical conditions 
have changed little, if at all — the Slovaks oc- 
cupy a territory comprising the counties of 
Pozsony, Nyitra, Bars, Hont, Zolyom, Trenc- 
sen, Turocz, Arva, Lipto, Szepes, Saros, Zem- 
plen, Ung, Abauj-Torna, Gomor, and Nograd, 
called in Slovak language : Presporok, Nitra, 
Tekov, Hont, Zvolen, Trencin, Turec, Orava, 
Liptov, Spis, Sarys, Zemplin, Uzhorod, Abauj- 
Torna, Gemer, Novohrad. To the counties 
here enumerated should be added Borsod 
(Borsod) with a large Slovak population, 
Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun (Pest-Pilis), Esztergom 
(Ostrihom), and Komarom (Komarno). This 
territory is bounded on the north by the semi- 
circular chain of the Carpathian Mountains 
and on the west by the river Morava. On the 
south and east there is no topographical de- 
markation. A well-defined ethnical line is all 
that separates the Slovaks from the Magyars 
and the Little Russians. How many Slovaks 
there are in Slovensko proper 2 and in the rest 

1 Many writers insist that Slovensko is an unwarranted translation 
of a Latin name used by King Lewis. 

2 Says Andrew Kmet: "How many Magyars and Germans are 
scattered over our territory it is hard to say, but surely their numbers 
will not exceed the number of Slovaks who again live in sections 



PAST AND PRESENT 57 

of the country, is a matter of speculation. 
Official figures set the number down at 1,900,- 
000. The true figure is nearer 2,500,000 or 
even 3,000,000. 

So nearly related in language and origin are 
the Slovaks and the Bohemians and Moravi- 
ans that they may be said to have a common 
history. Between the Moravians and Slovaks, 
dwelling near each other, the relationship was 
especially close. From the meagre and con- 
fused accounts that have come down to us, it 
would appear that at one time Slovakland 
formed the nucleus of the Great Moravian 
Kingdom ; that native princes related by 
blood to the Moravian reigning house ruled 
the people from the town of Nitra (Nyitra) ; 
that the Moravian-Slovak Kingdom extended 
far beyond the river Danube, into a territory 
called Pannonia. Over this Great Moravia 
ruled successively Princes Rostislav, Pribina, 
Kocel, and Svatopluk. Here it was that the 
Slovaks first heard the wonderful story of 
Christ from the Slavonic Apostles, Cyril and 
Methodius (863). Here, too, the art of written 
speech was taught to them. Under Svatopluk 

other than those that make up Slovakland, so that, if we applied the 
process of elimination in this particular instance, it would be seen 
that Slovakland is all ours." 



58 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

the kingdom reached the zenith of power and 
glory. With his death it began to decline, 
falling in ruins at the memorable battle of 
Pressburg in 907. What transpired in Slovak- 
land after the disruption of Great Moravia by 
the Germans and Magyars has not been made 
clear. It would seem, though, that not only 
the Magyars, but the Poles, Germans, and Bo- 
hemians as well, tried to secure for themselves 
a portion of Svatopluk's inheritance. The re- 
sult of the many-sided contest was that the 
Magyars seized Pannonia and the flat lands 
between the Danube and the Theiss ; the 
Germans took the country situated west of 
Pannonia ; Moravia and Slovakland became 
the prize of Bohemians and later on of the 
Poles. Exactly at what period the Slovaks 
were made subjects of Hungary, is also dis- 
putable. Magyars pretend to believe that the 
event occurred during the reign of St. Stephen, 
the first Hungarian king, who ushered the 
country into the community of European civil- 
ization. According to their version of it, King 
Stephen made a successful war on Mecislaw of 
Poland, and, taking Slovakland from that po- 
tentate, annexed it to his own crown, to which 
it has belonged ever since. It is a significant 
fact, though, that prior to 1075 no direct refer- 



PAST AND PRESENT 59 

ence is made to Slovensko in any of the 
documents issued by King Stephen ; and, 
while that pious monarch built numerous 
ecclesiastical edifices in Pannonia and in his 
possessions on both sides of the river Theiss, 
it is not known that he erected a single church 
or monastery in northern Hungary. An old 
chronicle says that in the year 1000 the Polish 
boundaries extended to the banks of the 
Danube. From this it would seem that 
Slovakland did not belong to Hungary in 
Stephen's time, but if it did, was all but un- 
known to the court of that King. The Car- 
pathian Mountains, overgrown as they were 
with dense forests, presumably offered few at- 
tractions to the Magyar horsemen of the plains 
and no opportunity for exploitation. 

Merged in the Hungarian crown, the Slo- 
vaks ceased to exist in a political sense. 
Henceforward they began to share in com- 
mon with the other people the glories and mise- 
ries of Hungary. 

The Tatar invasion of northern Hungary 
occurred in 1241. It lasted a year. A pecul- 
iar interest attaches to it because, indirectly, 
it laid the foundation to the colonization of 
Slovakland by foreigners, chiefly Germans. 
Such devastation the relentless barbarians 



60 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

wrought there that in many places not a soul 
was left alive. Only those who sought and 
found refuge in mountain recesses and forti- 
fied places escaped with their lives. This 
condition of things prompted several kings, be- 
ginning with Bela IV., to invite alien homeseek- 
ers to Hungary. The Germans were especially 
favored in the matter of privileges. Besides 
giving them large tracts of land free, an ex- 
ample that was followed in several instances 
by the clergy and the nobility, the crown con- 
ferred on the Germans the right to be governed 
by their own local laws and customs. Only 
judges of their nationality were competent to 
try them and the testimony of a fellow-coun- 
tryman was alone admissible. Non-German 
witnesses were disqualified from testifying. 
Such numbers of Germans appeared to have 
taken advantage of these unusual opportuni- 
ties that in the sixteenth century there was 
not a place in Slovakland but had German 
settlers. Eminently builders of cities, these 
Teutons and their descendants became a for- 
midable power in the country, in the course of 
time. Most of the commerce and all of the 
trade gradually centred in the cities which they 
had established and to which they success- 
fully refused to admit Slovaks and Magyars 



PAST AND PRESENT 61 

alike. Around these towns, some of which 
were noted for their opulence, was eventually 
formed a valuable element of Hungarian popu- 
lation, namely, the middle classes. While the 
peasants and the nobility continued to hold 
fortified castles and the villages, the Germans 
were in control of the cities. During the 
Turkish irruption many noble families from 
the south fled there to save themselves from 
the violence of Mohammedan soldiers. Being 
fortified and walled, these cities were the only 
places that could offer any resistance to the 
invaders. And, because the German burghers 
would not willingly receive them, a law was 
passed in 1563, making it compulsory for 
towns-people to admit within the gates of 
their cities all refugees, irrespective of nation- 
ality. At first the law was flagrantly violated, 
the Germans having powerful influence at 
court; but in 1604, after the outbreak of the 
Bocskay Rebellion, which had found a hearty 
support in Slovakland, sweeping changes were 
made in the law. All Hungarians were put 
on the same footing in the towns and cities as 
the Germans. This was a serious blow to the 
privileges and exclusiveness of the Germans ; 
from that time on their influence began to 
wane and nothing could save them, not even 



62 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

the efforts of Emperor Joseph II., who planned 
to make Hungary a German-speaking country. 
It is believed that in the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries the Germans in the Slovak 
territory must have numbered some 1,000,000 
souls. To-day only about 30,000 are left on 
the boundaries of the counties of Tekov, 
Nitra, and Turec. A somewhat larger colony 
has survived in Spis County. 

There are but few instances on record of 
Slovaks rebelling, resenting their vassalage to 
an alien race. They first gave vent to their 
political hopes and ambitions in the fourteenth 
century. Then the Slovaks, led by Matthew 
Csak (Csaky), otherwise known as " Matthew 
of Trencin," bade defiance to Charles Robert, 
the Anjou King. What led to this occurrence 
may be briefly told : In 130 1, the male line of 
the Arpad kings became extinct. Three reign- 
ing houses, Bohemian, German, and Italian, 
who claimed to be related, in some way or 
other, to the female branch of the Arpads, 
offered candidates for the vacant throne. All 
three claimants soon had supporters in the 
kingdom, After some deliberation the Es- 
tates chose Vaclav II., King of Bohemia. That 
prince, thinking possibly that the cares and 
honors of one crown were all he cared to bear, 



PAST AND PRESENT 63 

sent to the Hungarians a substitute in his son, 
Vaclav III., at that time a boy of thirteen. To 
this selection Pope Boniface VIII. promptly 
objected. Vaclav the elder, we are told, was 
a good-natured, easy going monarch ; and fear- 
ing violence to his child, and despairing of ever 
overcoming the opposition of the Roman See, 
he caused Vaclav III. to leave Buda in 1305 
and come home to Prague. 

Vaclav's irresolute action, it may be im- 
agined, was productive of instant mischief. 
Charles Robert, aided by the influence of 
Rome, now seized the crown that he coveted, 
but opposition was strong and almost uni- 
versal. Powerful nobles rose up in arms 
against him on every side. He had the throne 
but not the obedience of his subjects. Of all 
the rebels, Matthew Csak, the " Lord of the 
Vah and Tatra," as he liked to style himself, 
was the most formidable. Nobles, zemans, 
peasants, and shepherds flocked to his standard 
and willingly submitted to his authority. From 
his castle at Trencin, on the river Vah, 
Matthew ruled over a vast domain comprising 
the greater part of the Slovakland of to-day. 
Some thirty fortified castles belonged to him. 
In splendor and magnificence he vied with the 
King at Buda. Such was his power and the 



64 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

magic of his name that to this day people are 
wont to call that part of the country where 
he once ruled " Matthew's Land." Csak held 
out longer than any of the other oligarchs. 
Neither the wiles of the King, nor the anathe- 
mas of the Pope, who had excommunicated 
him, could bring him into submission. Pre- 
cisely what his plans were, or for what price 
the " Lord of Vah and Tatra " was willing to 
lay down arms, will never be known. It may 
be surmised, though, that the haughty rebel's 
ambition kept pace with his increasing power, 
and that when at the summit of his might he 
dreamed at his Trencin castle of emulating the 
great deeds of Svatopluk. Why not? The 
people were with him. They had not yet for- 
gotten Great Moravia. Affairs in the country 
at large were unsettled and otherwise it seemed 
that the time was propitious for a bold move. 

Charles Robert, it seems, divined Csak's 
schemes. Subduing by force or persuasion 
the nobles who opposed him, he prepared a 
supreme effort against the chief rebel. With 
a large army he entered Slovakland. At 
Rozhanovce (Rozgony), near the river Torysa, 
the armies of the King and of Csak met, in 
131 2. The Slovaks fought bravely ; but they 
were overwhelmed by numbers and defeated. 



PAST AND PRESENT 65 

On this bloody battle-field perished, at one 
blow, the nucleus of a future Slovak state that 
had been gradually forming around Trencin 
Castle. 

For over five hundred years after Matthew 
Csakhad ended his brief but remarkable career 
the Slovaks remained inactive. The furies of 
war had swept the hillsides of their mother 
country, drenching it with the blood of its 
defenders. During the war for the Hungarian 
crown between John Zapolya and Ferdinand 
I., following the disaster at Mohacs (1526), the 
Highlands bore the brunt of the fighting, for 
the Slovak nobility sided with Zapolya. The 
evil rule of the Turk had come and passed 
away. The invention of the art of printing, 
followed by the Reformation, had revolution- 
ized human thought in Europe. Yet the Slo- 
vak people could not be stirred to independent 
action. It was not till the tocsin of revolution 
had sounded on the banks of the Seine, in 1848, 
that these children of Svatopluk, like other 
people who were enthralled, began to feel a 
sudden longing for freedom. Led by Stiir, 
Hurban, and Hodza, a part of the Slovak 
nation rose in arms and demanded for itself the 
same rights for which the Magyars were con- 
tending with Austria. 



66 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Since Svatopluk's time nothing has influ- 
enced the Slovak mind in a higher degree than 
the Hussite religious movement in Bohemia. 
With the high tide of the Hussite wars the 
Slovaks received from their near Bohemian 
neighbors a precious gift, a Bible printed in 
the language of Hus and Komensk^, and it 
was probably this Hussite Bible that saved the 
nation from extinction, leading it later on to 
join the Bohemian republic of letters. 

The Hussites raided northern Hungary 
more than once, for Sigismund, who broke 
faith with John Hus in 141 5, was King of 
Hungary and of Bohemia both. But these 
raids were only a prelude to bloodshed that 
was yet to come. King Albrecht of Haps- 
burg died in 1439 without issue. It became 
necessary to elect a successor. Two powerful 
parties arose at once. Elizabeth, the Widow 
Queen, gave birth to a posthumous child, 
known in history as Ladislav the Posthumous. 
All Slovakland, except, possibly, the counties 
of Hont and Novohrad, ranged itself on the 
side of the Queen and of her son. The Ger- 
mans generally also took up the Queen's 
cause. The Magyars, however, cast their 
fortunes with Vladislav I. of Poland. Bitter 
and relentless civil war was the result. In the 



PAST AND PRESENT 67 

beginning the warfare was carried on by indi- 
vidual oligarchs or by people of this or that 
county. To prosecute her claim more vigor- 
ously, Queen Elizabeth retained a renowned 
Hussite captain, John Jiskra of Brandos. 
This adventurous soldier with his Bohemian 
troops seized the eastern and middle part of 
Slovensko. Another captain, Pongrac, held 
the western counties for Ladislav Posthumous. 
In 1444 Vladislav fell at Varna, battling with 
the Turks ; and the Hungarian Estates at last 
recognized Ladislav's rights to the crown, pro- 
viding, however, that during his minority John 
Hunyadi should act as regent. The action of 
the diet did not stop the civil strife entirely, 
neither John Jiskra nor Pongrac being willing 
to recognize Hunyadi's regency. Not until 
Ladislav was old enough to reign, himself, was 
there again peace in northern Hungary. Al- 
together the Hussite troops remained about 
twenty years. Their settlements were espe- 
cially strong in the counties of Gemer, Hont, 
Novohrad, Zvolen, Liptov, Trencin, and Ni- 
tra. Judging from the solid dwellings and 
churches they built, it would seem that they 
intended to settle permanently with their fam- 
ilies in Hungary. Some of the churches con- 
structed by them are still standing and easily 



68 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

distinguishable by their peculiar architecture. 
Originally the churches served the dual pur- 
pose of places of worship in time of peace and 
strongholds in time of public disquiet. Owing 
to the Hussites and to their teaching, Luther's 
Reformation in the sixteenth century found 
a large portion of the Slovak nation ready to 
embrace the new faith. During the Reforma- 
tion scores of teachers and ministers of the 
gospel came from Bohemia and Moravia to 
work among the native Slovaks, and, on the 
other hand, many students from that country 
went to seek education in the University of 
Prague. After the disastrous battle of the 
White Mountain, Bohemian Protestants again 
flocked to Slovensko to escape religious perse- 
cution at home. Every new arrival added a 
valuable element of strength to the literary 
unity of Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovensko 
that lasted until the time of Anton Bernolak, 
who codified the Slovak language and who 
inaugurated the secession movement from the 
Bohemian. 

* * * 

March, 1848, is the fateful month which 
forms the line of demarkation between the old 
and the new order of things in Austria. Be- 



PAST AND PRESENT 69 

fore March, Metternich and his invidious sys- 
tem of absolutism — after March, the dawn of 
liberty and constitutionalism. On March 3d 
Louis Kossuth yet spoke of the " poisoned air 
that issued from the charnel house in Vienna," 
and already on March 17th events had taken 
such a surprising turn that he could exclaim 
joyously : " We have attained all that we con- 
tended for. From now on our mistress shall 
be Pest and not Vienna." 

The news that Louis Philippe had forfeited 
his crown to the French republicans in Feb- 
ruary, 1848, travelled quickly to every corner 
of the Hapsburg monarchy. All at once the 
several races began to clamor for civil liberty 
and equal rights. In Hungary not only the 
Magyars, but the Slovaks, Croatians, Servians, 
and Rumuns as well, formulated their partic- 
ular grievances and claims. In some respects 
these claims were antagonistic to each other, 
although by no means irreconcilable, and, un- 
happily for the cause of freedom in that land, 
no wise measures had been provided for to 
bring them into harmony. Hungary's first 
gift from the sovereign consisted in a re- 
sponsible ministry ; but this body of repre- 
sentative men, influenced by Kossuth, almost 
from the day of its organization committed 



yo THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

itself to a policy that was certain to offend and 
repel all or nearly all, save the Magyars. 

The first public manifestation on a large 
scale among the Slovaks occurred on May 
ioth at Liptov (Lipto Szt. Miklos). Six arti- 
cles, supposed to contain the wishes of the 
people, were unanimously adopted. In sub- 
stance these articles were : 

" We demand that our people be permitted 
to take part in the legislative deliberations of 
the land, and this not only in law but in fact. 
And as such participation can alone become 
real and profitable when conducted in a lan- 
guage that is intelligible to us, we ask for our 
representatives the right to speak Slovak in 
the diet. 

" We demand the right to plead and answer 
cases in the courts of law in Slovak. 

" We demand that the school training of 
our youth, which is now so wofully neglected, 
be carried on in the mother tongue. 

" We demand a just and equitable represen- 
tation in the diet. 

11 We demand for ourselves and shall forever 
ask that our nationality, which we will never 
renounce, remain inviolate and inviolable. 

" We demand that this petition be made 
known within the entire jurisdiction of Hun- 
gary, in Croatia, and Slavonia, and may be 
brought to the notice of the viceroy and of 



PAST AND PRESENT 71 

the Hungarian ministry, to the end that all 
friends of liberty and humanity may plead our 
just cause." 

Unwonted activity pervaded the atmos- 
phere of Slovakland in the spring of 1848. 
Everywhere open-air meetings were held, in 
larger towns the audiences running into the 
thousands. Equality and liberty, the mainte- 
nance and defence of the Slovak language in 
the schools, judiciary, and administration, were 
the keynote of them all. The Liptov pro- 
gram was indorsed by a dozen towns, supple- 
mented here and there by subordinate local 
needs. 

Kossuth and his followers at first affected 
to treat the situation in Slovakland with lordly 
unconcern. What resistance could be offered 
by an untutored mass of peasants just emerg- 
ing from mediaeval conditions — a people who 
hardly knew the meaning of the word " Slovak," 
preferring in their ignorance to be called 
Highlanders, Lowlanders, Trencans, Liptovans, 
Protestants, Catholics, Sarisans, and what not ? 
Kossuth, himself of Slovak extraction on his 
mother's side, well divined that it was not 
Slovakland that needed careful watching. The 
real danger lurked elsewhere, in the south, 



72 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

among the warlike Servo-Croatians in Croatia, 
Slavonia, and Dalmatia. 

Croatia and Slavonia, although " annexed 
parts" of Hungary since 1102, are, in a politi- 
cal sense, as free and independent as Hungary 
herself. These lands have their home gov- 
ernment, with a ban or governor at the head, 
but, by virtue of their relation to the Hun- 
garian Kingdom, send forty deputies to the 
parliament at Pest. On matters common to 
the whole crown, all deputies, including those 
from Croatia and Slavonia, have a vote ; when 
affairs are under discussion that concern Hun- 
gary alone, the deputies from the annexed 
lands have no voice. In away, then, Hungary 
may be said to have two parliaments, one aug- 
mented, in which all the deputies participate, 
the other limited to representatives of Hun- 
gary proper. Dalmatia, which at the begin- 
ning of the twelfth century was united to 
Hungary, now belongs to Austria. 

The relations between the Croatians and 
Magyars were not always of the friendliest, 
and immediately prior to the Revolution they 
were at snapping-point. Two main reasons 
were accountable for this hostile feeling. In 
the first place, most Croatians accused Hun- 
gary of undue meddling in their home affairs. 



PAST AND PRESENT 73 

Then again Ljudevit Gaj's scheme of United 
South Slavonia, or " Illyria," as he termed it, 
had legions of enthusiastic partisans south of 
the Drave. Needless to say that every loyal 
Hungarian detested the thought of " Illyria." 

On March 20th a popular assembly took place 
at Zagreb (Agram), the Croatian capital, which 
was attended by many South Slavonians of 
prominence. This national assembly passed 
a set of bold resolutions, indorsing the plan 
of Illyric unity as elaborated by Gaj. Other 
things that the convention demanded were 
freedom of speech and press, the election of a 
House of Representatives intended to meet 
alternately at Zagreb, Osek, Zadr, and Fiume, 
and the garrisoning at home of native regi- 
ments. But the most far-reaching act, as sub- 
sequent events have proved, was that the 
delegates present nominated and elected on 
the spot, as viceroy or Ban of Croatia, Colonel 
Joseph Jelacic. 1 

The election of Jelacic by a popular vote 
was, of course, illegal and contrary to prece- 
dent ; but the Emperor-King, gracefully yield- 
ing to the inevitable, confirmed the election 

1 Jelacic de Buzim, also spelled Jellacic, or, in the old-fashioned 
way, Jellachich, is the name of an ancient noble family, originally 
from Bosnia. 



74 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

of the ban a few days before a deputation of 
Croatians, that was to have espoused their 
countryman's cause, had arrived in Vienna. If 
it be true that coming events cast their shad- 
ows before them, the governments in Vienna 
and Pest could have guessed what sort of 
man they would have to cope with in the 
new ban, judging from the tenor of the mani- 
festo whereby that soldier convoked the Cro- 
atian Constituent Assembly a few days after 
his installation : " That will be the right course 
for us to pursue which, disregarding the pres- 
ent Hungarian Government, will adjust our 
relations with Hungary along the lines of 
liberty and independence, as is worthy of a 
free and brave people." 

Among the very first acts of Jelacic was 
the abolition of serfage. Restrictions were re- 
moved from the press. A national militia was 
reorganized. Magyar officials and renegades 
were removed from office and everywhere 
replaced by nationalists. Magyar correspond- 
ence from Pest was returned to the senders 
unopened. What, however, angered Pest 
above all, was the issuance by the ban of an 
order to all municipalities throughout Croatia 
and Slavonia enjoining them neither to receive 
nor to execute orders other than those from the 



PAST AND PRESENT 75 

office of the ban in Zagreb. Plainly this meant 
the severance, judicial and legislative, of Croa- 
tia and Slavonia from Hungary. 

Encouraged by the apparent success of the 
Croatian s, the Servians who are massed in the 
southeastern part of Hungary also began early 
to show signs of restlessness. Both of Sla- 
vonic origin, and speaking substantially the 
same dialect, the Croatians and Servians differ 
only in the religion they profess, the Croatians 
being Catholics, and, as such, using the Latin 
alphabet, while the Servians, who are Ortho- 
dox, adhere to the Cyrillic. 

On previous occasions the Hungarians have 
succeeded in checkmating the national wishes 
of Croatians and Servians by playing skilfully 
on their religious differences. A deputation 
numbering several hundred persons called on 
Metropolitan Rajacic, urging him to summon 
the Servians to meet at once to take counsel 
on their exclusive affairs. Accordingly, the 
Metropolitan sent out a call for a Constituent 
Assembly, to meet on May 13th, at Novy Sad 
(Ujvidek). However, an order was issued 
from Pest, changing the date to May 27th 
and enjoining the participants to refrain from 
the discussion of political questions. But the 
Metropolitan chose to ignore the government 



76 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

at Pest, and, as the town of Novy Sad had 
been placed under martial law, instructed the 
delegates to meet at Karlovac instead. Thou- 
sands of Servians from every district of the 
kingdom came to this truly national gathering. 
Even from the Servian principality delegates 
arrived. Among the many memorable resolu- 
tions passed by this novel parliament was one 
declaring the Servian people politically free 
and independent under the united rule of Aus- 
tria and Hungary, creating a " Vojvodina," 
or " Land of the Servians," and lastly elect- 
ing unanimously as its chief Colonel Stephen 
Suplikac. It could not escape notice that the 
newly-elected "vojvoda" and the ban were 
brother officers in the same regiment. Also, 
that the Servians agreed then and there to 
co-operate harmoniously with the Croatians. 

Most backward of all the nationalities in 
Hungary, the Rumuns, too, were drawn in the 
whirlpool of discontent, demanding what they 
considered to be their own. 

Portentous events were now fast develop- 
ing in the several centres of the monarchy. 
Vienna seething with political excitement, 
and centre of an agitation which favored 
the ambitious plan of the Frankfort Parlia- 
ment ; Prague in feverish anticipation of the ap- 



PAST AND PRESENT n 

preaching Slavonic Congress that was to meet 
there on June 2d, and which was to protest 
against the bartering of Slavonic Austria to 
Greater Germany ; Pest on the eve of an 
open rebellion against the camarilla in Vienna, 
but at the same time dealing heavy blows to 
the national aspirations of the non-Magyar 
Hungarians ; Zagreb distrusting both Vienna 
and Pest and determined to strike out inde- 
pendently, if necessary. The Slovak high- 
landers, who were already wide awake to the 
situation, fast becoming critical, gave up all 
hope of relief from Kossuth's government, 
which spurned them and turned their eyes to 
the Prague Congress and to the parliament in 
Vienna. Several bloody collisions between the 
populace and the military had already taken 
place, when, on June 5th, the first freely elected 
Croatian Diet convened in Zagreb. 

Imposing in the extreme were the cere- 
monies of the opening day, and such throngs 
crowded the old town of Zagreb that the 
installation of Jelacic, as ban, had to be per- 
formed in the public square, no building be- 
ing large enough to hold them. That the 
Hungarian Government protested against the 
installation of the " usurper ban" only served 
to heighten the effect of the occasion. That 



78 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

which, however, worried the Kossuthists and 
Frankfortists more than anything else was the 
presence in Zagreb, as invited guests, of Bo- 
hemians, Slovaks, Servians, and Slovenes. 
H urban, the spokesman of the Slovaks, sent a 
thrill of indignation through his hearers when 
he declared that the lot of the Christians in 
Turkey was far more bearable than the con- 
dition of Slovaks in Hungary. Opening the 
diet, Ban Jelacic made this singular utterance : 

"If the Magyars are anxious to play the role 
of oppressors toward us and our kinsmen in 
Hungary, let them learn that we still remem- 
ber the saying of that valiant Ban, Erdody, 
1 Regnum regno non prescribit leges' — 'A king- 
dom shall not prescribe laws to a kingdom.' 
With sword in hand we shall prove to them 
that the times are past when one nation may 
presume to rule over another." 

All efforts to reconcile the many conflicting 
interests seemed unavailing. The Hungarian 
Diet, which held its first session on July 5th, 
only made the gap wider and deeper by its 
haughty attitude toward non-Magyar nation- 
alities. The mobilization of an army of two 
hundred thousand men was a challenge to all 
malcontents, the signification of which could 
not be doubted. 



PAST AND PRESENT 79 

The first to take up arms in defence of their 
rights, real or imaginary, were the Servians. 
" Vojvodina," with all that it implied, was an 
idea that every Magyar abhorred deeply, and 
the Hungarian Government inflicted swift and 
terrible punishment on all those who either 
aided or abetted the plan of the " Land of 
the Servians." Countless numbers of Servian 
patriots perished on the gallows, and if the 
Magyars complained of the Servians that 
they played the role of La Vendee, though 
the parallel is utterly inapplicable, the answer 
could be made that even La Vendee had its 
glories and honors. So brutal had been the 
treatment of the Servians who were unarmed, 
and so precarious the position of the brave 
fellows who had taken the field, that Patriarch 
Rajacic sent one frantic appeal after another 
for help to Ban Jelacic. In the name of a 
common ancestry, and in the name of the just 
cause that his followers were struggling for, 
he entreated the Croatian not to forsake his 
brothers in their supreme hour of trial. 

At last the die was cast. Jelacic set his 
whole army in motion, and with the watch- 
word, " Sto bog dade i sreca junacka," " What- 
ever God may give and a soldier's luck," he 
crossed the swiftly flowing and turbulent waters 



80 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

of the Drave in three columns on September 
i ith. What the ban achieved, with the limited 
resources at his command, — most of the sea- 
soned men from the Military Frontier being 
absent from home and fighting under Radeck^ 
in Italy, — was really remarkable. 

Owing to the ban's prompt action, affairs in 
Hungary at once took on a new turn : the 
sorely pressed Servians were relieved, atten- 
tion was diverted from the Rumuns, for the 
time being at least, and the Slovaks felt reas- 
sured. Most cruel measures were adopted to 
" pacify" the last-named race. Their leaders 
were imprisoned and tortured, and more than 
one, to recall the names of Sulek and Holuby, 
perished on the gallows. Among those Slo- 
vaks who suffered long imprisonment occur to 
us the names of Rotarides, Modran, and Borik. 
Hurban, btur, and Hodza were under constant 
police surveillance, and many were their thrill- 
ing escapes. Even worse persecutions came 
when the diet ordered a partial mobilization 
of the home guards against the Servians and 
Croatians. Slovak communities, following the 
example of Tisovec, refused to post the draft, 
on the ground that it lacked the customary 
sanction of the King. To reduce the refrac- 
tory highlanders to subjection, gibbets were 



PAST AND PRESENT 81 

erected everywhere, and it is asserted that 
there was not a village along the Vah that was 
not provided with a rough gibbet. Strung 
up to them, or to the limbs of willow trees, 
were the mouldering bodies of rebels. Scoff- 
ingly the gibbets were named " Slovak trees 
of liberty." Later, when the insurgents en- 
tered the country from the north, they demol- 
ished, as they marched, the " Kossuth gallows," 
as these subsequently came to be known. 

Hostile critics require us to believe that the 
great ban, in striking at Hungary, had other 
objects than to punish the alleged oppressors 
of his people, and higher ambitions than the 
salvation of Austria. That he stood sponsor 
for liberty and emancipation, they say, was 
only a bid for popular acclaim. Did he not 
join forces with the reactionaries in Vienna 
when the revolution was well under way ? In 
a sense this was true ; but why, it may be asked, 
did these self same accusers invoke the military 
aid of reactionary Vienna to suppress the agi- 
tation for reforms that made itself manifest 
in Slovak and Servian territory? Assuredly 
what was wrong in one instance should not be 
claimed to be right in the other. No mean 
share of the responsibility for the ban's mili- 
tary undertaking rested with Ljudevit Gaj, the 



82 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

editor of the Narodne Novine Horvatsko Slavon- 
sko Dalmatinske. The originator and chief 
exponent of Illyrism or fraternization of Servo- 
Croatians, a staunch adherent of KollaY, 
Ljudevit Gaj was Jelacic's right-hand man, 
clearing the way with his resolute pen for the 
ban's larger projects. 

It is not the purpose of this chapter to re- 
count, step by step, the many incidents that 
preceded the rupture between Austria and 
Hungary — the massacre of General Lambert 
in Pest, the execution of War Minister Latour 
by a street mob in the Hapsburg capital, the 
flight of Ferdinand V. from Vienna, and later 
his abdication in favor of Francis Joseph I., 
the stormy sessions of the young parliament, 
the clash between the Teuton and the Slav 
for the mastery of Austria, the Frankfort Parlia- 
ment, and the Prague Congress ranging their 
respective forces for the series of battles yet 
to come ; nor of the events that followed it, 
from the initial successes of the Magyars to 
the irretrievable ruin at Vilagos ; all these are 
matters which the reader will find treated in 
full elsewhere. 

Soon after Jelacic let loose his Croatians, 
the Slovaks, or rather those of them, largely 
Protestants, who could intelligently grasp the 



PAST AND PRESENT 83 

situation, resorted to arms. For some time 
the Slovaks vacillated, being undecided where 
to look for sympathy and help. Should they 
form an alliance with Vienna, which was Ger- 
man, or would their particular interests be best 
subserved by remaining loyal, notwithstanding 
an open rebuff by Pest, to the Hungarians? 
A hard choice it was, with Scylla on one side 
and Charybdis on the other. At the Slavic 
Congress on June 3, 1848, Ludevit Stur is 
quoted as having declared : " You say it is to 
our advantage to preserve the Austrian mon- 
archy. Our paramount object is self-preserva- 
tion. First let us help ourselves, then assist 
others. Austria has managed to live until 
now — and we have rotted. What would the 
world say were we to put on record that our 
only aim was to save Austria ? " Nevertheless, 
and despite Stiir's bitter invective, we find the 
Slovaks casting in their lot with the dynasty. 

A story is told of a French peasant who 
came down from the mountains to buy salt, 
and in this way was surprised to learn that the 
French Revolution had begun. Upper Hun- 
gary is traversed by a succession of steep 
mountains and rocky defiles, and it will readily 
be believed that many of the mountaineers, 
cut off as they were from the outside world 



84 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

and destitute of reading matter, like the 
French peasant, hardly comprehended what 
all the stir was about. To these remote 
dwellers Kossuth's name, which was then on 
everybody's lips, must have come like some 
tale of wonder. Proverbially docile ; utterly 
devoid, it was believed, of the warlike spirit 
that has made the Croatians feared and re- 
spected by their enemies ; with national pride 
crushed out of them ; and weighted down by 
centuries of oppression and neglect, it was 
thought by all that the Slovaks were incapa- 
ble of organizing armed resistance. But the 
unexpected happened, and the despised high- 
landers, following the example of the Servians 
and Croatians, took up arms against Magyar 
tyranny. 

Behind the movement stood, nominally, the 
" Slovenska Narodna Rada" (Slovak National 
Council). In reality, however, the entire work 
and responsibility lay on the willing shoulders 
of Stur, H urban, and Hodza. Jaroslav Borik, 
who served in the political section of the Rada, 
had the misfortune of falling into the hands 
of the authorities, and he perished miserably. 
To Zach, Bludek, and Janecek was confided 
the care of the military preparation of the 
Rada. 




ySk'<h«4 sflforfe** J?'i 



CO 



PAST AND PRESENT 85 

The first expedition entered Slovakland on 
September 17th, from the north, under the 
leadership of Zach, Bludek, and Janecek. As 
the natives remained curiously indifferent, the 
volunteers had to feel their way slowly and 
cautiously. Moreover, a lack of military train- 
ing, and, above all, poor equipment must have 
made it clear to Hodza and H urban that the 
expedition could not achieve signal results. 
To add to their woes, the volunteers while 
engaging their energetic opponents, found it 
advisable in the early stages of the uprising 
to keep a sharp lookout on the imperial troops, 
in conjunction with whom they were supposed 
to co-operate ; for it often meant a punishment 
just as hard and swift to be captured by the 
imperialists as to fall into the hands of the 
Magyars. At no time did more than eight 
thousand volunteers respond to Stur's call. 
After some minor successes, notably that of 
Brezova, where they dispersed the Magyar 
guards on September 2 2d, the volunteers were 
forced to disband. Nothing daunted by the 
first failure, in which the insincerity of Vienna 
played a prominent part, Hodza in October 
planned another invasion of Slovakland. In 
the month of November Bludek obtained per- 
mission from the Austrian Minister of War to 



86 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

recruit Slovak volunteers. Bludek really did 
succeed in raising seventeen companies of 
them. In Silesia Bludek's contingent was 
augmented by four companies of imperials 
and a detachment of horsemen, and this ex- 
pedition, commanded by Colonel Frischeisen, 
forced the passage, on December 4th, of the 
northern Hungarian frontier at Jablunovsk^ 
Pass. Near Budatin, on December nth, 
Lewartowski defeated the Hungarians, but he 
was finally compelled to retire to Silesia before 
an overwhelming command. Afterwards, hav- 
ing joined General Gotz's imperial army, the 
volunteers once more returned to Hungary, 
and, retaking Budatin, operated in the northern 
counties. Early in 1849 Hodza and Janecek's 
men overran the region along the lower Vah, 
demolishing Kossuth's gibbets wherever they 
went. After the battle of Kaplna the insurgent 
bands were disarmed, thus bringing the Slovak 
uprising to a somewhat unsuccessful close. 

What followed after the downfall of the 
Hungarian revolution before the combined 
armies of Austria and Russia is too well known 
to be recapitulated here in detail. Once more 
the black pall of absolutism settled over the 
dominions of the triumphant Hapsburg, sti- 
fling every expression of liberal and national 



PAST AND PRESENT 87 

thought, not only in Hungary but in Bohemia 
and the other states as well. Over night Min- 
ister Bach filled Hungary with his officials, 
to administer affairs there " impartially but 
sternly." No one must now complain of fa- 
voritism. Magyar and Slovak received equal 
treatment from Bach and his creatures — both 
races being made to feel that a foreign master 
ruled over them. True, under Bach's regime 
the use of Slovak in schools and local admin- 
istration became much more general than had 
been the case under the Magyar rule. Even 
higher schools here and there were permitted 
to teach Bohemian-Slovak. Political life, how- 
ever, was wholly denied to every Hungarian 
citizen. Bach, the all-powerful, was charged 
to watch closely and to crush promptly every 
political movement of the Austrian nations, 
and contemporaries all agree that his gen- 
darmes, of whom he had an abundance, did 
much to please their exacting master. What 
bitter thoughts must have racked the brain of 
that impetuous rebel H urban, when he ob- 
served Bach's gendarmes tracking his foot- 
steps ! What must have been his estimate 
of Austrian gratitude ! 

Mirabeau has said that "privileges die, but 
the people is eternal." And so it was with 



88 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Bach's system. In less than a dozen years 
his government by the police crumbled down 
as a direct result of the Austrian defeat at Sol- 
ferino. In the fall of 1859 Bach was requested 
by his sovereign to " resign." 

With the return of constitutionalism to 
Hungary, in 1861, there was every reason to 
believe that the Magyars would, in turn, be- 
come reconciled to the Slovaks, conceding 
them, at least, a part of the rights demanded 
in the manifesto of May, 1848. But it is a 
curious feature of modern Hungarian history, 
and one that has time and again found fresh 
exemplification, that every concession made to 
the Magyars has, in a corresponding measure, 
worked injury to the non-Magyars. Not that 
the welfare and interests of the Hungarian 
peoples are divergent or irreconcilable ; but 
because the favorite policy of forcible Mag- 
yarization is fundamentally wrong. 

So it proved to be in this instance. When 
the Hungarian Diet opened, following upon 
the restoration, non-Magyars became anx- 
ious. What would the diet do for them, 
if anything ? The sovereign had made peace 
with the dominant people ; would these evince 
the same spirit of magnanimity toward their 
less favored fellow-citizens ? 



PAST AND PRESENT 89 

No welcome message was forthcoming from 
Pest, and the Slovaks, impatient of delay, 
agreed to take matters into their own hands. 
On June 6, 1861, the leading men of the 
nation assembled in Martin, and there, amid 
genuine enthusiasm, unanimously adopted a 
petition of rights, called by Stephen Daxner, 
who drafted it, a " Memorandum. " 

What judgment a thoughtful student of 
Hungarian politics will eventually pass on 
the soundness of the doctrines set forth in the 
memorandum, is of course uncertain. The 
great majority of Slovaks of our generation 
indorsed it in full, insisting that it represented 
the minimal demands of the nation. As com- 
pared with the manifesto of 1 848, the memo- 
randum impresses the reader as being far more 
dignified in tone and temperate in claims. 
Throughout the memorandum one observes a 
spirit of conciliation, which feature was almost 
wholly absent in the manifesto. Having 
made an appeal for harmony and thorough un- 
derstanding on the ground of community of 
interest, material and intellectual, the memo- 
randum urged a complete social equality, easy 
of attainment when it was once conceded that 
Slovaks were a separate and distinct nation, 
occupying a territory the boundaries of which, 



9 o THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

for administrative purposes, could be agreed 
upon later. In this territory, or "okoli," the 
Slovak language should be paramount, though 
not exclusive, in churches, schools, and local 
government. 

A deputation repaired in due time to Pest 
to present the document to the diet. Baron 
Revay, Szentivanyi, and Justh, who were will- 
ing at first to put themselves at the head of the 
petitioners, backed out at the last moment, 
having learned in advance that the diet would 
not receive them. And this is what actu- 
ally happened. Instead of probing into the 
justice of the grievances and answering the 
petitioners frankly, the diet sought to create a 
public feeling adverse to the Slovak memoran- 
dum. Orders were sent out from Pest to the 
highland counties to solicit protests against it. 
Renegades were, of course, found in plenty, 
especially among the zeman class, who signed 
a vigorous counter petition. And this latter 
paper was afterwards read in the diet and 
applauded by the legislators as the true voice 
of all loyal Slovaks. 

Failing at home, the memorandists later on 
decided to appeal direct to the throne. Ste- 
phen Moyses, the distinguished Catholic bishop, 
went with a delegation to Vienna. The Em- 



PAST AND PRESENT 91 

peror-King is said to have received his faithful 
Slovaks graciously. But, like the appeal to 
Pest, this pilgrimage to Vienna was also barren 
of material results. 

Realizing at last the futility of seeking as- 
sistance from without, the leaders now turned 
their attention to self-help. A happy begin- 
ning was made in the organization of higher 
schools, of which the nation was then utterly 
destitute. The first to give themselves to 
this promising work were the Protestants, who 
founded two sectarian gymnasia, a higher at 
Yelka Reviica in 1862 and a lower at Martin. 
To Stephen Daxner, the father of the " Memo- 
randum," belongs the chief credit for the es- 
tablishment of the first-named school. Charles 
Kuzmany did much toward the starting and 
successful operation of the other. Soon after, 
the Catholics opened a gymnasium at Klastor. 
Following close upon these auspicious events 
the "Zivena," a women's society, was organ- 
ized. In 1870, Andrew Radlinsky, with the 
co-operation of the Catholic clergy, laid the 
foundation to the " Society of St. Vojtech." 
The same year (1870), witnessed the incorpo- 
ration at Martin of a publishing concern on 
shares, John Francisci having removed his 
political newspaper, the Vedornosti, published 



92 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

heretofore in Pest, to the new Slovak capital 
and renaming the Vedomosti to Ndrodnie 
Noviny. But by far the most eventful hap- 
pening of this memorable period of national 
development was the birth in 1862 of the 
"Slovenska Matica" — the " Slovak fund." 
The object of the Matica, as expressed in the 
by-laws which were officially approved in Au- 
gust, 1862, was stated to be "to publish and 
circulate Slovak books and works of art, to 
give lectures on educational subjects, to collect 
funds for the purpose of aiding literature, arts, 
sciences, natural history, and researches in an- 
tiquities, and also to subsidize native scholars 
and artists, and to offer prizes and rewards for 
works on science and arts." When the open- 
ing meeting was held at Martin, the Matica 
boasted of 984 members, the roll practically in- 
cluding every Slovak of note regardless of 
creed. On Bishop Moyses was conferred the 
honor of presidency ; Charles Kuzmany, a 
Protestant bishop, was elected first vice-pres- 
ident, and John Orszagh, another high church 
dignitary, second vice-president ; Paul Mud- 
ron and Michael Chrastek were elected secre- 
taries; Abbot Thomas Cerven, treasurer. 
About 90,000 florins had been raised by vol- 
untary subscription, the Emperor-King himself 



PAST AND PRESENT 93 

contributing 1000 florins. Gratifying in the 
extreme was the missionary work of the Ma- 
tica. Books were printed that otherwise could 
not be published because of the poverty of the 
authors or the limited number of subscribers. 
Of the Letopis, which is a kind of chronicle of 
national events, eleven volumes were issued 
by this educational society between 1864-74. 
Chiefly due also to the impetus of the Matica 
some 150 reading clubs and circulating libra- 
ries came into being. The lower clergy of 
both denominations, encouraged by their bish- 
ops, who stood at the helm, vied with each 
other in the patriotic enterprise. 

The crushing defeat that Austrian arms sus- 
tained at Sadova in 1866 was of course bound 
to affect, in one way or another, not only the 
policy of the Hapsburgs toward their old-time 
partner and late antagonist, Germany, but the 
mutual relations of the several Austrian peo- 
ples as well. 

In sullen opposition to the King since 1848, 
the Magyars, ever on the alert, decided to 
strike for concessions when Austria, weakened 
by the war, was least able to resist them. 
Dualism, the division of Austria in two parts, 
Austrian and Hungarian, was the direct out- 
come of the pressure brought to bear by the 



94 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Magyars. Presently we shall see how the 
Slovak "hordes" profited by Hungarian au- 
tonomy in 1867. 

Once more, but for the last time, the expec- 
tations of the patriots rose. Owing to Deak's 
initiative the diet passed, in 1868, the so-called 
" Law of Nationalities." In substance the 
" Law of Nationalities" emphasized the privi- 
leged position of the Magyar, but it recognized, 
in principle, the limited use of other tongues 
besides the dominant one, in districts where the 
non-Magyar idioms predominated. Article 44, 
paragraph 26, of the law provided that " every 
inhabitant of the land, irrespective of nation- 
ality, and every commune, religious denomina- 
tion and parish had the right to establish at 
his or its own proper cost and expense elemen- 
tary, middle and higher schools and to found 
societies having for their aim the promotion 
of philology, arts, sciences, agriculture, com- 
merce and industry under proper state super- 
vision, to formulate its own by-laws, if not 
inconsistent with the laws of the land, etc., the 
language to be used in managing the affairs of 
such private associations being determined by 
the founders thereof." Under the law litigants 
and taxpayers were to be served in their 
\ mother tongue. Thus a litigant, be he plain- 



PAST AND PRESENT 95 

tiff or defendant, could insist on being heard 
in the language prevalent in his commune. 
Likewise the judge was obliged to conduct the 
trial, examine witnesses and enter the court 
minutes in the language of the parties to the 
action. 

But alas ! wofully has the " Law of Nation- 
alities " failed of its purpose. For a year or two 
it seemed to respond to the ideas of its noble- 
minded framer. Times changed rapidly, how- 
ever, and the Magyar, confident of his growing 
power, again returned to his favorite policy of 
repression, which he had been forced to aban- 
don, at least in part, by the events of 1848. 
Probably the chief reason why the much- 
vaunted " Law of Nationalities " became an 
ornamental dead letter on the Hungarian 
statute-book was that, within a short time after 
its enactment, the country was stirred to its 
very depths by the " Magyar state idea." 

What is the " Magyar state idea ? " A high 
government official, at one time a deputy, 
Adalbert Grunwald is looked upon as the 
elaborator of this doctrine, though not its 
originator, for the thought had been born in 
the reign of Joseph II. In 1878, Grunwald 
published a work, which he named Felvidekiek 
(Highlanders), the guiding idea of which is 



96 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

that Hungary must be changed to a homo- 
geneous country, if it is to have a safe future. 
To accomplish this end it was necessary to 
strengthen the Magyar element and make it 
paramount in the land. To rule was the des- 
tiny of the Magyars ; to follow must be the 
mission of the rest. Danger to the state 
lurked in the national awakening of the Slo- 
vaks, Servians, and others, and this awakening 
should be promptly suppressed. A native of 
Hungary could not be a patriot unless he in- 
dorsed in full the Magyar state idea. While 
it might be permissible, reasoned Griinwald, 
for a peasant or laborer to converse, for ex- 
ample, in Slovak, a cultured person, reared 
on Hungarian soil, should under no circum- 
stances speak, think, or feel, except as a 
Magyar. A Slovak of education who re- 
mained true to his ancestry was deficient in 
patriotism and a traitor to his country. To 
Magyarize Slovakland was the government's 
manifest duty, and it should be effected by 
forcible means, if necessary. The Slovaks 
were slaves and nature intended them for 
drudges. Although faithful to their country 
and brave in war they seemed to have been 
born to eternal bondage, because the terms 
" Slovak" and "lord" were wholly incom- 



PAST AND PRESENT 97 

patible. There was no Slovak nation, only a 
horde speaking that language. The so-called 
Slovak party consisted of a few rebels, who 
should be done away with ; the peasants could 
then be subdued with ease. To the Magyars 
was allotted the task of exterminating the 
Slavs living on Hungarian soil. A compromise 
with the Slovaks was impossible. There was 
only one expedient left — to wipe them out. 
If the Magyars wished to live, they must in- 
crease their numbers by assimilating the non- 
Magyar people. 

Very little urging was required to put 
Griinwald's captivating theories into practice. 
Who dared to interfere with the ambitious 
designs of the Magyars, absolute masters in 
the country since the Act of Settlement ? Un- 
merciful and quick were the blows that were 
now to be dealt to the children of Svatopluk. 

In the month of August, 1874, the govern- 
ment ordered the closing of the Revue school ; 
in January, 1875, followed the closing of the 
Martin and Klastor gymnasia. There yet re- 
mained the Matica. But the accusing finger 
had been raised against that fine institution, 
and to a few initiated ones it was known be- 
forehand that a condemnatory verdict had 
been pronounced against it. Futile was the 



98 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

pleading in Pest of William Pauliny, then 
vice-president of the Matica, and of Francis 
Sasinek, its secretary. Tisza had made up his 
mind. To all the eloquent arguments of 
Pauliny and Sasinek his only reply was that 
not Slovaks but panslavs were persecuted, and 
that all the three institutions had been proved 
to be hotbeds of panslavism. At last Matica's 
doom was announced officially. Three months 
after the suppression of the Martin and Klas- 
tor schools, the charter of the Matica was 
annulled, the library and the rich collections 
in the museum sealed, and the fund, which 
had been raised entirely by voluntary subscrip- 
tion, confiscated by the government. When 
Polit, a Servian deputy, called the ministry to 
account for this high-handed and barbarous 
proceeding, insisting that the funds confis- 
cated should be returned, as the by-laws of 
the Matica provided, to the donors thereof, to 
wit, to the Slovak nation, Premier Koloman 
Tisza made the famous utterance on the floor 
of the Hungarian Parliament, December 15, 
1875, " There is no Slovak nation." 

Later an effort was made to reopen a 
gymnasium at Martin. Would the Ministry 
of Education give the necessary consent ? 
Trefort thought it would. The law of 1868 



PAST AND PRESENT 99 

was apparently favorable to the scheme, for it 
provided that non-Magyar peoples might estab- 
lish sectarian middle schools in their respective 
environs. V. Pauliny-Toth, hoping for the 
best, announced that voluntary subscriptions 
would be received toward the school fund. 
In a month one hundred thousand florins 
were raised. At this juncture Minister Trefort 
made the crushing announcement that the 
gymnasium could not be allowed — and this 
in direct violation of the law of 1868. How, 
then, the reader will ask, do journalists, school 
teachers, writers, and other professionals per- 
fect themselves in the higher knowledge of 
the tongue ? The answer is : by diligent pri- 
vate study. The few hundred communal 
schools hardly teach its elements. 

The Slovaks appropriately describe the years 
succeeding 1875 as " dark days of persecution." 
Persecution it is of the most atrocious and 
merciless kind — the kind of which John Hay 
complained to the Rumanian Government in 
his famous note issued on August 11, 1902. 
Speaking of the cruel ill-usage of the Jews in 
Rumania, a condition strikingly applicable to 
the Slovak case, the great secretary then said : 

" Shut out from nearly every avenue of self- 
support which is opened to the poor of other 



ioo THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

lands, and ground down by poverty as the 
natural result of their discriminatory treatment, 
they are rendered incapable of lifting them- 
selves from the enforced degradation they en- 
dure. Human beings so circumstanced have 
virtually no alternative but submissive suffer- 
ing or flight to some land less unfavorable to 
them." 

Longest to resist the encroachments of 
Magyarization were the church organizations. 
Protestants of the Augsburg Confession, ex- 
clusive of Transylvania, number about 1,085,- 
000. Of this total Slovaks claim 600,000, 
Germans 235,000, and Magyars 250,000. For- 
merly the whole country was divided in four 
districts or bishoprics, and because the Cis-Da- 
nubian district had 85 % Slovak communicants, 
it followed that Slovak Lutherans had the 
control of at least one bishopric. This consti- 
tuted quite a bulwark of strength to ministers 
and teachers in their patriotic work, in schools, 
churches, and denominational conventions. 
To the Magyar party, however, the arrange- 
ment was objectionable, and accordingly a law 
was formulated in 1894 by which two Slovak 
seniorates were detached from the Cis-Danu- 
bian and attached to the Theiss district. By 
this geometry the Slovaks, as had been fore- 



PAST AND PRESENT 101 

seen, lost a positive majority in every bishop- 
ric. Moreover, the government, to secure a 
firmer hold on the good-will of ministers of the 
gospel, stood sponsor to the passage of a law in 
1898 whereby preachers who enjoy an annual 
income less than 1600 crowns are entitled to a 
subvention from the state. The meaning of 
this will be best understood when it is remem- 
bered that the tempting law affects almost every 
minister in Slovakland ! Those suspected of 
" sentiments unfriendly to the state" — note 
the application of the particular provision — 
may not receive subventions. 

An event of more than passing interest, al- 
though without apparent results, was a meeting, 
in 1895 in Pest, of non-Magyar nationalities, 
including Slovaks. 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 

IN the preface to his Literature in Slovak- 
land, written in 1880, Jaroslav Vlcek, a 
recognized authority on the subject, says : 

" The Bohemian-Slovak nation is divided 
politically, administratively, ethnographically, 
and linguistically into two unequal parts, the 
development of which has been totally differ- 
ent both in manner and trend. The first part 
embraces Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. It has 
a glorious past, all its own, which reached its 
culmination during the Hussite wars, waged to 
free man's conscience and secure spiritual free- 
dom from the thraldom of the Middle Ages. 
It has a rich blossoming literature, the golden 
flow of which is traceable long prior to the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Lastly, 
because of its rejuvenation, that should be 
regarded as the most remarkable occurrence 
in the history of mankind, it is recognized by 
all unprejudiced observers as a separate body 
politic, occupying a respectable place in the 
history of European culture. 

"The second and smaller part of the nation, 
which inhabits northern Hungary, lost its polit- 
ical independence after the battle of Pressburg 



102 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 103 

(907), hence as early as the dawn of the tenth 
century, and history is silent in regard to 
it. But this is only seemingly so, for it has 
never ceased to contribute its quota of culture, 
of letters, of military force, and of leaders of 
thought to the land into which it has been 
merged. Its legions battled in the crusades, 
against the Turkish hordes which repeat- 
edly invaded the fatherland, and rallied under 
every insurgent banner of the time, but all this 
was done under the name of ' Hungary.' 
The world is ignorant of its existence, and its 
literature is barely a century old. 

" One name alone shines through the void 
of Slovak history since the downfall of Great 
Moravia, namely that of Matthew Csak of 
Trencin, 'the Lord of Vah and Tatra,' who 
tried to unite Slovakland with Bohemia in the 
beginning of the fourteenth century. Yet even 
this name suddenly vanished like the flight of 
a meteor. The single figures of Pongrac of 
Liptov, an illustrious Slovak lord; of Matthew 
Korvin, who was reared in the atmosphere of 
Slavic thought in Bohemia, and conferred 
patents framed in Bohemian on a number of 
towns in Upper Hungary; of Vladislav II., 
who likewise corresponded in that language, 
opening Hungarian Diets in Bohemian, and of a 
few others who in their respective times were 
familiar with Slavonic tongues; all else has 
disappeared behind an impenetrable screen of 
Latin which helped to obliterate every expres- 
sion of thought and racial characteristic of the 



104 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

people, from the time of St. Stephen to the 
beginning of the nineteenth century. 

" And just as all traces of the Slovaks taking 
an independent action in the events of the 
world's history are lost to us, so the fact is ob- 
vious, too, that the native language, sheltered 
as it was by the nature of the country and cut 
off from intercourse with the outside, had 
failed to develop and to keep pace with its 
more powerful kin in Bohemia. The levelling 
influence of Latin in the Middle Ages appears 
overwhelming in Slovakland. Nowhere is ob- 
servable any literary movement, not even signs 
of any home culture whatever — of civilization 
that had not been transplanted thither from 
elsewhere. The Hussites entered the country 
and settled there in the middle of the fif- 
teenth century (1440). Especially they over- 
ran Nitra, Novohrad, and Zvolen counties. A 
portion of the inhabitants adopted their re- 
ligion, and with it the language of the Kralic 
Bible, for liturgical purposes. Yet the people 
remained unmoved. A second stream of Bo- 
hemian exiles followed the first, and after the 
battle at the White Mountain in the seventeenth 
century Slovakland welcomed to its hearth 
John Amos Komensky and other Bohemians 
of renown ; Slovak evangelical preachers re- 
ceived into their safe-keeping writings of the so- 
called golden era of Bohemian literature, books 
that were condemned to be burned at home; in- 
dividual Protestant clergymen went to Prague 
to acquire education there and composed theo- 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 105 

logical works, translated Bibles, compiled hym- 
nals, edited prayers and sermons. However, 
all this was not literature, only a series of dog- 
matical, apologetical, polemical, and theological 
writings and pamphlets, designed almost ex- 
clusively for the use of evangelical clergy and 
influencing, and that only to a degree almost 
imperceptible, the adherents of the Protestant 
faith. The bulk of the people remained in its 
former condition of intellectual torpor, unpro- 
gressive, immovable. . . . 

"Meantime Bohemia lay in the throes of 
a lethargic sleep. The Bohemian language, 
having been ruthlessly suppressed everywhere 
except in the wretched hovels of the peasantry, 
had been deprived of its right and power. From 
1620 to 1820 Bohemia virtually did not exist. 
Property rights may be said to'have been for- 
feited during this lengthy period. . N -. . 

" It was the impulse of religion which laid 
the foundation of native literature in Sloven- 
sko. In the year 1718 a zealous Paulist 
monk, Alexander Macsaj, began to publish 
his harangues in a subdialect current around 
Trnava. His evident object was to get nearer 
to the comprehension and sympathy of the com- 
mon people. The innovation was obviously 
meant as a rebuff to the Protestants and it 
served to pave the way for Bernolak. A modest 
opening it was ; yet it made receptive the 
home soil for literature that was to sprout 
up later. 

" The close of the eighteenth century was at 



106 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

hand. The reign of Maria Theresa and of 
Joseph II., while freeing the human mind in one 
direction, endeavored to fetter it in another by 
forcible Germanization. The French Revolu- 
tion shattered one after another the last rem- 
nants of mediaeval cults, fetters, and prejudices ; 
here and there were seen, illuminating the im- 
penetrable darkness, flashes of Slavic literature, 
emerging into life. All of them found inspi- 
ration in the grand idea of a national awaken- 
ing. In Russia, and especially in Little Russia, 
the native language sought to liberate itself 
from the deadening influence of the Church 
Slavonic. A new light penetrated into Bo- 
hemia and the South Slavic countries. 

" Slovakland at this juncture outstripped 
Bohemia, and this finally decided the fate of 
its literary language. The Slovaks nowhere 
hearing a word of Bohemian, which had been 
stamped out by the hoofs of mounted dra- 
goons 1 and placed under the ban by anti-re- 
formers ; and, moreover, as Catholics, not 
being tied to it by tradition, grasped at the 
living tongue of their own people, a course as 
logical as it was natural. A band of patriots 
with Fandli, Bajza, and Bernolak at their head 
took hold of the language that had been som- 
nolent for eight hundred years, and began to 
mould it to literary uses. Bernolak issued the 

1 During the Thirty-Years War, missionaries accompanied by 
mounted troops visited one village after another, burning Bohemian 
books and Bibles. Liechtenstein's dragoons were especially notorious 
in this wanton work. 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 107 

first Slovak grammar and a compendious Slovak 
dictionary. Benefactors came forward, chief 
among them being Prince Primate Alexander 
Rudnay, who generously aided the literature 
which was being ushered into life. Poets were 
born, Holly foremost of them, who sang for the 
first time familiar native songs which, despite 
their strange classic form, were nevertheless 
Slovak. H owever, Bernolak's dialect made slow 
headway in popularity, partly owing to the op- 
position of the Protestants, and partly because 
of its inherent imperfections. Bernolak, who 
labored in the neighborhood of Nitra and 
Pressburg, chose for his literary language, in- 
stead of pure Slovak, the faulty subdialect of 
these counties, the so-called Bohemian-Slovak. 
Equally defective was Bernolak's orthography, 
being purely phonetic, illogical, and lacking 
connection with the other Slavonic languages 
— a veritable linguistic jumble. It was a work 
faulty not alone in principle but in construction 
as well ; still, itwas the first signal effort to bridge 
the differences between the so-called Biblical, 
then dominant, and the Slovak language. 

" The nineteenth century was opening. 
Once more vigorous breezes blew from west- 
ern Europe, breezes of liberty, and the Slovak 
people, heretofore immovable, were set in 
motion with the rest of the big Slavic family. 
The needs of the people multiplied, and all 
that was required was to throw a spark into 
the smouldering mass, appealing to it in a 
voice that all would at once recognize as their 



108 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

own. The Catholic and Protestant clergy, 
who had been defying one another all along, 
the first displaying marked partiality to Latin 
and " Bernolacina," the other with equal per- 
tinacity upholding the Biblical Bohemian, con- 
sented to listen to the conciliatory arguments 
of Ludevit Stiir, a great reformer, who, having 
grasped the situation, contrived to isolate Ber- 
nolak's dialect, and in the year 1844 with nu- 
merous followers (the young Protestant party) 
came forward with a dialect that is spoken in 
eight central Slovak counties, and which in 
miniature represents all Slavic tongues, not 
even excepting the Old Bulgarian, being 
besides melodious, sonorous, and chaste. The 
confusion which arose through the adoption of 
Stiir's tongue and the retention of Bernolak's 
orthography, added to that of numerous syn- 
tactical and other errors and imperfections, 
were gradually removed by Hodza, and finally 
the work was systematized by Professor Martin 
Hattala, who gave the language a scientific 
and Slavic finish. This explains all. The philo- 
logical convention of Pressburg (1852), that 
completed the reform in orthography, was the 
means of firmly and lastingly uniting both 
factions, hostile to one another for cen- 
turies, namely the Catholic (lately Berno- 
lak's) and Protestant (Stur's) in one common 
tongue, which in due time took a position 
among other Slavic literatures as its youngest 
sister. 

" From this it will be seen that Slovak liter- 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 109 

ature, as such, is the product of the nine- 
teenth century. 

" But while it is admitted that the Slovak 
dialect was called forth by an urgent need, 
and while the innovation always had and now 
has a wide and appreciative public in both liter- 
ary and journalistic fields, yet purely scientific 
literature can never thrive in Slovakland, lack- 
ing as it does the requisite sources of material 
support. . . . 

" The ties of culture that unite the Bohe- 
mian-Slovak nation are strong and indissolu- 
ble, and, notwithstanding the fact that the two 
peoples have parted, their literatures appear 
to us as a literary unit, forming a circle within 
a circle and supplementing one another as 
surely as that Slovakland and Bohemia are 
one linguistically, nationally, ethnographically, 
and geologically. 

"Slovak belles-lettres may therefore be di- 
vided into two periods : the first period begin- 
ning from Bernolak's time and ending with 
Stiir (1 783-1844), the second from Stiirto the 
present day (1 845-1 880)." 

Exactly what position should be assigned to 
Slovak in the family of Slavonic languages is 
a question on which philologists are not agreed. 
Is it entitled to an independent place along 
with the Russian, Polish, Bohemian, Servo- 
Croatin, and others, or should it be classed as 
a dialect of the Bohemian, to which latter it 



no THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

bears a striking resemblance in sound, gram- 
mar, and intonation ? Certain it is that no two 
Slavonians understand each other as readily as 
a Bohemian and a Slovak. What renders an 
accurate classification difficult is the fact that, 
but for fragments of songs, nothing is known to 
exist of early Slovak literature. If there were 
any, the evidences of them are now lost, or lie 
hidden, as is believed by some, in the still 
unexplored libraries of Hungarian magnates 
having estates in Slovakland. The " father of 
Slavic philology," Joseph Dobrovsky, added 
the weight of his authority in favor of the 
linguistic independence of Slovak. So did 
Safafik, at first, in a German work published 
in 1826. Later on, and having examined the 
subject more thoroughly, Safafik changed his 
mind. He thought he recognized in Slovak 
an old form of Bohemian. According to his 
version of it, the rustics in Bohemia and Mo- 
ravia, like all country people, indulged in local 
mannerisms of speech, yet on the whole devi- 
ating but slightly from the written standard. 
This, Safafik claimed, was not the case with 
the Hungarian Slovaks. Living in a rough 
and mountainous country, far from the refining 
influences of seats of learning, and without any 
national centre to unite them, they drifted 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE in 

more and more from the accepted forms of 
speech. It is on this hypothesis alone that we 
can account for the bewildering multitude of 
dialects and subdialects that were evolved in 
Slovakland in the course of centuries. Jagic, 
having pointed out all the structural and lexi- 
cographical variations, sums up by saying that 
" science is justified in regarding Slovak and 
Bohemian as two constituent parts forming 
a unity in the group of Slavic languages." 
Florinskij took the same ground as Dobrovsky. 
In a treatise on the subject he enumerated no 
less than sixteen instances wherein Slovak is 
supposed to vary from its Bohemian sister. 
Already the geographical situation of the Slo- 
vaks toward the other Slavs seemed to justify, 
in Florinskij's judgment, the assumption that 
their idiom is a distinct one. Slovak shares all 
the peculiar characteristics of the languages 
which it borders — Bohemian here, Polish there, 
Russian and Servian where it mixes with those 
kindred tongues. Though nearer to Bohe- 
hemian than to any other Slavic language, 
reasons Florinskij, it nevertheless must be 
treated under a distinct head. Ludevit Stur 
had this to say in praise of his mother tongue : 

" Viewed from the standpoint of philology, 



U2 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Slovak appears to us as a distinct and separate 
language, without which it would be impracti- 
cable to formulate a comparative grammar of 
Slavic tongues, because it forms a connecting 
link between them all." 

Dr. Samuel Czambel, in one of the latest 
works on the subject (Slovdci a ich rec, 
1903), also essays to prove the independence 
of his mother tongue. But if truth must be 
told, all the great philologists oppose Czam- 
bel and the other grammarians who hold with 
him. 

Be it as it may, the fact remains that until 
Bernolak's time (1 762-1813) writers of Slo- 
vak birth, such as Daniel Sinapius (Horcicka), 
Daniel Krman, Matthew Bel, Bohuslav Tab- 
lie, George Palkovic, Stephen Leska, George 
Rybay, etc., all composed their works in Bohe- 
mian. Especially was this true of the Protest- 
ants, who have always remained faithful to the 
Bohemian. It is not without interest to know 
that Slovak Protestants to this day use Bohe- 
mian hymns, catechisms, and Bible. Indeed, 
the holy book has never been translated into 
Slovak. 

Many reasons there were that led to the lit- 
erary secession from the Bohemian. Religious 
zeal and the ever-increasing antagonism be- 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 113 

tween the Catholics and Protestants were 
probably the chief contributing causes. 

Then there was the cry : " Write as you 
speak ! " At home the people used Slovak ; 
in the church the preacher conducted services 
in Bohemian. That was a situation admittedly 
incongruous. " The present style of writing 
affected by Bohemians/' wrote Safafik to Kol- 
lar in 1827, "can never become popular 
among Slovaks. . . We authors must play 
the role of Brahmins, of priests, whose sermons 
the people will not understand." Again, the 
terms "Slovak" and " Bohemian," each owing 
allegiance to a different country, were a serious 
obstacle to lasting unity. 

Still another reason was that the Magyars 
neglected no opportunity to remind their 
Slovak brothers-in-law that Bohemian was a 
foreign language in Hungary. After the death 
of Joseph II., who had dreamed of making 
Hungary a German state, as related elsewhere, 
the Magyars founded, in 1 791, a chair of the 
Magyar language and literature at the national 
university. Jealous of this signal achieve- 
ment, the Slovaks also demanded some con- 
cession for themselves from the government. 
But as Bohemian was being stigmatized as 

" foreign " and inadmissible, the Catholics, in 

s 



U4 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

1793, formed a " Slovak Learned Society" 
for the cultivation of their own tongue. In 
this way they hoped to obtain in the future 
what was denied to them at that time. 

Then again, between 1620- 1820 Bohemian 
had been practically dead in its own home. 
Expelled from schools and administration by 
the promoters of the anti-reformation move- 
ment — become the language of an ignorant and 
brutalized peasantry — how could it defend its 
rights in Slovakland when it was helpless on 
its native heath ? 

Finally, why should the Catholic Slovaks 
favor Bohemian ? Surely no such reverent 
tradition and affectionate ties bound them to 
it as was the case with the Protestants. On the 
contrary, they had every reason to dislike it. 
It will be remembered that in the fifteenth 
century the Hussites, led by John Jiskra, of 
Brandys, had overrun Upper Hungary. The 
settling in Slovakland of these warriors, whom 
religious persecution had driven from Bohe- 
mia, was productive of far-reaching results. 
In the first place, the Hussites had sown the 
first seed of Protestantism among the people 
whose country they had invaded. Secondly, 
they imposed on the natives their idiom, forc- 
ing it to the front in schools and churches, and 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 115 

to a certain extent in communal affairs, to the 
exclusion of Latin. Most important of all, the 
Hussites brought about the regeneration of 
the people in a national sense. In the seven- 
teenth century, after the disastrous battle of 
the White Mountain, thousands of Protestants 
from Bohemia again flocked to Slovakland. 
The relations which spring from common faith 
were cemented anew. Naturally, the Catholic 
clergy could not remain indifferent, seeing what 
inroads " the religion imported from Bohemia " 
was making among the faithful. 

Already before Bernolak's time the separat- 
ist tendencies were more or less noticeable. 
It may be laid down as a general rule that, 
while the Protestants always adhered scru- 
pulously to the chaste model of the Kralic 
Bible, the Catholics from the very start seemed 
to favor local forms of speech. Every pamphlet 
that came out in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries from the Catholic presses showed 
these grammatical deflections. In the six- 
teenth century two Bohemian letters, f and e, 
were dropped altogether, and such forms — typi- 
cal of the Slovak of to-day— jd nesem (I carry), 
instead of the Bohemian jd nesu, otcov/20 
(fathers), instead of otcoz^, were introduced. 
Numerous words foreign to Bohemian, were 



n6 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

adopted, as vidiek (highland), raz (once), pdcit 
(to please), robit (to work), neskor (later), and 
so forth. 

Slowly but steadily the divergence grew. 
Alexander Macsaj, a Paulist priest, published 
at Trnava, in 1718, a harangue in defence of 
the Catholic faith, in the " Slovak language." 
A bolder secessionist than Macsaj, and ad- 
mittedly more intelligent, was Joseph Ignace 
Bajza, also a priest, born in 1754. While 
Macsaj wrote at haphazard, seemingly with no 
definite object in view, there was clearly a 
method in Bajza's composition. 

To Anton Bernolak, however, belongs the 
full credit of inaugurating the separatist move- 
ment and making it a success. It was he who 
codified Slovak. Before Bernolak's appear- 
ance, one could not speak of Slovak literature, 
— rather, of literature in Slovakland. Born in 
Slanice, in the county of Orava, on October 
14th, 1762, of the lower class of nobility, the 
"zemans," Bernolak was destined by his 
parents for priesthood. Slavic lore attracted 
him from his early youth. As a student of 
theology, in the seminaries at Trnava and 
Pressburg, he conceived, and later executed, a 
scheme whereby his mother tongue might be 
adapted to literary uses. With that end in 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 117 

view, at the age of twenty-five years, he pub- 
lished a Latin treatise. In 1790 appeared his 
grammar, a book in which the author's ambi- 
tious plans were set forth in full. His " lexicon," 
which is quite an exhaustive and laborious work, 
was published between 182 5-1 82 7, thanks to 
the munificence of Canon Palkovic. 1 Crude 
in material and replete with faults that even 
his admiring friends could not overlook, the 
first two volumes by the youthful priest had a 
startling effect. The Protestants ranged them- 
selves in sullen opposition to the innovating 
theories of Bernolak. But that was to be ex- 
pected. On the other side, all the Catholic 
clergy promised to support him. Time had 
proven that the author committed several 
errors of judgment. An irremediable mistake 
was that he chose the wrong dialect on which 
to build. Matthew Bel already guessed the 
truth when he said that the richest and purest 
dialect was the one spoken about an equal dis- 
tance from the seats of the Bohemians, Mora- 
vians, Poles and Magyars, and called, from its 
location, " Central Slovak." This self-evident 



1 Many books printed in the " bernolacina " were issued at the 
expense of Alexander Rudnay, Cardinal Primate of Hungary, who 
is famous for his words : ' ' Slavus sum ; et si in cathedra Petri 
forem, Slavus ero ! " 



n8 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

fact Bernolak either did not know or would 
not admit. He had recourse, instead, to the 
Trnava and Pressburg dialects ; whether he 
wished to compliment the Catholics, predom- 
inating there, or, as seems more likely, because 
more men of letters and publishers flourished 
around these parts than elsewhere, is unknown. 
Still another bad feature of Bernolak's lan- 
guage was its phonetic mould. To the one rule 
" Write as you speak " he subordinated every 
other consideration. Letters f, e, u, etc., which 
are not sounded in Slovak, he urged, should be 
eliminated altogether; and he advocated the 
adoption of consonantal combinations dz and 
dz. Even the logical connection between his 
creation and the other Slavonian tongues was 
lacking. Nevertheless, the " bernolacina," as 
it became known, endured some sixty years. 

In order to make his innovation popular, 
Bernolak placed himself at the head of the 
" Society for Slovak Literary Art," every 
member of which had to take a pledge to 
further the work. Joseph Bajza, George 
Fandli, Adalbert Arady, Simon Falbi, Anton 
Battel, George Holly, Joseph Nejedty, and 
Anton Saffarovic all enrolled as members of 
the society or lent their aid. Trnava, having 
a Catholic college, was chosen as a center of 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 119 

this movement, and in time, branches, with 
bookstores in each, were established at Nitra, 
Rovna, Banska Bystrica (Beszterczebanya), 
Jager (Eger), Roziiava (Roznyo). " The 
Society of the Friends of the Slovak Language 
and Literature" was another body that was 
organized to propagate Bernolak's language. 

Whether it was jealousy or a desire not to 
be outdone by the Catholics, the Protestants, 
too, began to band themselves into literary 
societies. An " Association for the Advance- 
ment of Slovak Letters " was founded about 
this time by Bohulav Tablic, George Palkovic, 
M. Hamaliar, L. Bartholemaeides, M. Godra, 
and S. Cernansky. Owing to the extreme 
poverty of its members, the association did not 
last long. But already in 1803 a new organi- 
zation, having ample means at its disposal, 
took up the place of the defunct one. The 
" Institutum Linguae et Literature Slavics," 
for the promotion of Bohemian-Slovak, is justly 
celebrated in the annals of Slovakland. The 
lecture-rooms of the institution in the Evan- 
gelical Lyceum at Pressburg, swarmed with 
patriotic youth. Under Ludevit Stiir, the In- 
stitute reached the zenith of its renown. The 
last association of this kind among the Protes- 
tants was the " Slovak Literary Society at 



120 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Banska Stiavnica" (Selmecbanya). J. Holuby, 
B. Tablic, J. Seberiny, A. Lovich, and J. 
Rybay were its founders. This latter-named 
society was instrumental in establishing a chair 
of Bohemian-Slovak language and literature at 
the Evangelical Lyceum at Banska Stiavnica. 
Still another literary schism was to come 
in 1 843- 1 844. This time it was the young 
Protestant party, led by Ludevit Stur, that 
decided to secede from the Bohemian. His- 
tory has shown that Stur was actuated by the 
loftiest of motives in taking this step. It grieved 
this zealous patriot to see his little nation torn 
up in so many factions. He sincerely deplored 
the centrifugal tendencies in the ranks of the 
Catholics. Unless checked in time, he believed 
there would be a complete rupture between 
them and the Protestants. Stiir was convinced 
that there must be some medium of under- 
standing between those two hostile factions, 
but what was it ? That " bernolacina " would 
ever unite Catholics and Protestants, he 
doubted. How to win back to the Slovak 
cause the renegade "zemans," with their well- 
known aversion to Bohemian, was another 
matter that occupied Stur. With the " zemans " 
in the ranks, the nation's fighters would find 
invaluable allies. Again, he perceived the 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 121 

need of awakening his people from their long 
sleep. Great events were imminent, and he 
felt that his people should be ready when the 
time came. How was he to strike the right 
chord in their hearts? Stur's intuition told 
him that it was useless to make an appeal in 
Bohemian. He must commune with his people 
in the tongue in which they prayed and sang, 
the tongue that alone was natural to them, 
and that was Slovak. Stur went to work, 
and in due time the tenth Slavic language was 
born. 

Thinking to profit by Bernolak's blunder, 
Stur decided in favor of a dialect which obtains 
in the counties of Liptov, Orava, Turec, Upper 
Trencin, Upper Nitra, Zvolen, Tekov, Hont, 
Novohrad, and a part of Gemer. As far as 
concerned the dialect, the choice was a happy 
one. Here, in the depths of the Tatra Moun- 
tains, was a rich language, apparently least 
affected by surrounding influences. Unfortu- 
nately, the grammarian made the same fatal 
mistake as Bernolak. He adopted the pho- 
netic system. 

Now Slovaks had three different schools of 
writing : 

The Catholics continued to use " berno- 
lacina." 



122 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

The young Protestant party favored gener- 
ally Stur's dialect, which was called " sturstina." 

The older writers, like Kollar and Safarik, 
remained faithful to Bohemian-Slovak. 

Bitter quarrels, lasting for years, broke out. 

The Bohemian literary institution " Matice 
Ceska" issued a warning " About the need of 
one literary language for Bohemians, Mora- 
vians, and Slovaks." 

" A number of the younger Slovak literary 
men [wrote Francis Palacky in 1846] began 
last year against the advice and entreaties of 
their colleagues to again lay the foundation 
of a new Slovak literature, which might be 
designated, by way of distinction from those 
previously tried, a Tatra literature. Lacking 
knowledge and experience, these men have 
taken a course that must lead them and their 
followers direct to destruction and ruin. If 
any of the Slovak dialects had found their 
way, within the last years, into legislative 
bodies and county conventions ; if laws had 
been framed therein ; if it were the language 
of the executive and of the higher schools, 
then hopes might be entertained that some- 
time it might usher into life a new literature, 
though it could boast of none in the past. 
Now, however, when Slovak is almost pro- 
scribed by law and excluded from the diet and 
the administration ; when the Magyar, follow- 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 123 

ing in the wake of victory, is beginning to 
force its way, with the aid of the state, into the 
very village school ; when the higher classes 
have deserted Slovak almost to a man for the 
Magyar cause, and the nation, weak numeri- 
cally, is bound to look for support to the 
middle and lower classes and, therefore, mostly 
poorer classes, who are, besides, divided and 
antagonized by several subdialects ; who have 
nowhere a public social life, nowhere indepen- 
dent centres of their more important affairs ; 
who are forsaken by every one, who struggle 
between life and death, and feel themselves 
whirled irresistibly into an all-engulfing vortex 
— it is a mistake, fatal and grievous, to think of 
such a work, to incite anew old disputes, to 
weaken by division forces that are already 
weak, perhaps to lose sight, in the heat of a 
new strife, of the principal object." 

Jonas Zaborsky, addressing Caspar Fejer- 
pataky, argued as follows : 

" You want the Slovaks to discontinue the 
Bohemian and to write in their mother tongue. 
Which of the Slovak dialects, however, will 
you choose for that purpose ? Will it be 
the Liptov ? the Trencin ? the Sarys ? the 
Gemer, or Lord knows which ? Can you not 
see that there are as many dialects in our land 
as there are counties ? That these dialects 
vary as much from one another as they all 
differ from the Bohemian ? Which one, pray, 



124 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

will you elevate to the dignity of written lan- 
guage ? Your answer will be : none of them ; 
that you will select and retain that which is 
best in all. But what dialect will you use as 
the groundwork, and who is to decide what 
shall be added thereto from other dialects ? 
Friend, we should not give up the Bohemian, 
not so much for the sake of unity with the 
Bohemians, but in the interest of our own 
unity. Suppose we were successful in im- 
proving the grammar. Yet, in a lexicographi- 
cal sense, we will not, and in the nature of 
things cannot, have our own language. All 
the terms relating to higher, abstract notions, 
all the words in the realm of science and art, 
must be taken from the Bohemian storehouse. 
Create a literary language to-day, and you will 
find that you will not make yourself one iota 
more intelligent to the Slovaks. The poor qual- 
ity of our literary productions, which is due 
partly to the wretched condition of our schools 
and partly to the lack of public libraries, should 
deter us from trying to build up an indepen- 
dent literature." 

" As matters are [pleaded John Kollar], Sla- 
vonians are already so divided, cut up, lacer- 
ated, scattered, and dismembered, externally 
and internally, that it is a treason to reduce 
these particles to atoms almost invisible ; on 
the contrary, the person would deserve well 
who would undertake to weld into one the 
many detached fragments. Other nations have 
shown us the way a long time ago. The ocean 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 125 

divides North America from England, and 
yet these countries have but one literary 
tongue. Among Germans, how many local 
forms of speech, dissimilar from one another, 
there are ! The Kralic Bible originated in 
Moravia. Komensky, Zerotin, Ctibor, and 
other shining stars of the first magnitude in 
the old literature, were Moravians. Tranovsky 
was a Silesian by birth. Cerfiansky, Dolezal, 
Hruskovic, Semian, and other Slovaks wrote 
correct Bohemian. Some of the foremost Bo- 
hemian writers of recent times, whose names 
will live for ages in the history of Bohemian 
letters, belong, by birth, to Moravia and Pan- 
nonic Slovakland." 

All appeals for harmony were in vain. One 
thing became evident even in the heat of the 
quarrel — namely, that a return to Bohemian 
was out of the question. 

M. M. Hodza published, in 1847, what he 
called Epigenes Slovenicus, and a year later 
Vitin o slovencine, and in both of these philo- 
logical works he tried to prove that the system 
of phonetic spelling, which was adopted by 
Bernolak and Stiir, could not be maintained. 
Unless the langugage was reconstructed on 
an etymological basis, confusion and dishar- 
mony were bound to continue. It appears 
that Hodza's books came out at a propitious 



126 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

moment ; every one seemed to be getting tired 
of the endless bickering. The two great par- 
ties, Bernolakists and Sturists, were both will- 
ing to make mutual concessions. Peace was 
desired above all. Accordingly a conference 
was arranged between representative men at 
Cachtice (Csejte), in 1847, and the following 
resolution was passed : " It is agreed that a 
special philological commission be chosen 
which shall pass on the work of Michael M. 
Hodza, Epigenes Slovenicus, treating of the 
theory of our language and its grammar." 

The most prominent writers of the two war- 
ring factions were named to serve on the com- 
mission : L. Stur, O. Caban, E. Gerometta, J. 
Scasny, C. Cochius, B. Hrobofi, and M. 
Hattala. 

The revolution that broke out in 1848 of 
course made it impracticable for the commis- 
sion to come together. Some members of it, 
like Stur, were too occupied with other mat- 
ters to think of grammars. They had been 
called to lead their people to battle. But there 
was one scholar on the commission who went 
quietly to work, and before the year 1850 was 
over he wrote and published, along the lines 
suggested by Hodza, a Grammatica Linguce 
Slovenian . This was Martin Hattala. In the 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 127 

month of October, 1851, another philological 
conference took place, this time in Pressburg. 
Bernolakists and Sturists again came together, 
and in the most harmonious way unanimously 
voted their approval of Hattala's book. At 
the same time it was agreed to translate and 
publish it in Slovak. This was done in 1852, 
when it issued under the title of a Short Slo- 
vak Grammar. Three distinguished Protes- 
tants (Sturists) and three equally renowned 
Catholics (Bernolakists) announced above 
their names in the preface that the " gram- 
mar met the approval of both parties, and that 
both have agreed to abide by it in the future." 
This Pressburg Conference at last made the 
Slovak language uniform. 1 

* * * 

Five names are inseparably associated with 
the new literary and national movement that 
was born immediately prior to the revolution of 
1848. They are those of John Kollar, Paul 
J. Safafik, Ludevit Stiir, Joseph M. H urban, 
and Michael M. Hodza. Properly speaking, 
Kollar and Safafik belong to Bohemian litera- 

1 Dr. Czambel still recognizes five distinct dialects : That of the 
Calvinists in the neighborhood of Kosice and Uzhorod (Ungvar) ; 
Sarys ; Bernolak's ; Stur's ; and Hodza-Hattala's. 



128 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

ture, having always made common cause with 
it, and upholding, to the end of their lives, the 
literary unity of the two countries. Still, their 
writings did so much toward the nationaliza- 
tion of the Slovaks that their names cannot 
be omitted. 

A most singular circumstance, and one that 
even a casual student cannot fail to observe, is 
the number of names of ecclesiastics which 
one encounters in Slovak literature. So out 
of proportion are the clergy to the laity repre- 
sented that one is irresistibly led to believe 
that but for them Slovak letters might have 
never taken root for lack of cultivators. Espe- 
cially is this true of the early authors, most of 
whom, if not all, were either clergymen or peo- 
ple who in their youth had received a theologi- 
cal education at one of the many seminaries 
that flourished in Upper Hungary. Thus, 
Kollar was a minister of the gospel. The 
famous triumvirs, Stiir, Hodza, and H urban, 
had all been prepared for the church. Of the 
long list of writers with an ecclesiastical train- 
ing it will suffice to name : 

John Holly (i 785-1 849), a Catholic priest, 
a renowned poet of the Bernolak group of 
writers. 

Evangelical pastors : Andrew Sladkovic, 




JOHN HOLLY 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 129 

Samuel Chalripka, John Chalupka, Dr. Charles 
Kuzmany, professor of theology, Samuel To- 
masik, Ladislav Pauliny, Paul Dobsinsk^, C. 
Zoch or Cochius, August Krcmery, Samuel 
Godra, Andrew Bella, Joseph Podhradsky, 
Daniel Marothy, Daniel Bachat, and host of 
others. 

" Why are we meeting with such a small 
measure of success ?" complained young Hur- 
ban in 1847, and, forthwith, he proceeded to 
answer himself : " Because our leaders have 
been till now, almost without exception theo- 
logians. So abundant are the books and ideals 
with which they have befriended us, that we 
Slovaks should be the happiest nation in the 
world, provided literature and ideals were 
enough to make nations happy. Ours is a 
purely theological nationality. Until some 
genius other than a churchman places himself 
at the head of our affairs, we shall continue to 
decay." 

When John Kollar first published his famous 
lyric-epic poem, Sldvy Dcera — Slavids Daugh- 
ter y in 1824, Stiir and those of his compatriots 
who were destined to revolutionize Slovak- 
land were yet boys. This poem, written in 
Bohemian was a most stirring summons to 
the Slavs to unite. 



i 3 o THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

The Slavic peoples then living under the 
rule of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Turkey 
presented a composite picture of the direst 
misery. With aching heart the poet tells of 
the woes that oppressed them. Like Childe 
Harold, he travels through the Baltic and Po- 
labian provinces (along the River Elbe) "that 
were once the cradle, but are now the tomb of 
the race." He recounts all the terrible wrongs 
inflicted on the Polabians by their old-time 
antagonists, the Teutons. In Bohemia and 
Moravia every place of interest is visited and 
the deeds of persons of fame recounted in the 
poem. From those countries the poet pilgrim 
goes to Slovakland and further down south 
and east to Croatia and Servia. Wrathfully 
he hurls sinister imprecations at the various 
foes of the Slavs, and greater yet is his anger 
at those who, turning renegades, have become 
traitors to their blood and ancestry. Every- 
where the bard beholds disunion and hurtful 
jealousy, and he deplores these hereditary sins 
of the Slavs ; for, in his opinion, they alone are 
to blame for the wretched condition of their 
respective branches. From all the fragments 
he would mould one immense statue before 
which Europe should kneel in awe. The key- 
note of the whole poem is an exhortation to 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 131 

unity. " Learn to love your nation ! " he thun- 
ders. " Let the words echo from the Tatra 
Mountains to Crna Gora (Montenegro) and 
from Krkonose to the Urals : Hell for traitors, 
heaven for patriotic Slavs ! " 

The effect of the poem was tremendous, far 
greater than Kollar ever dared to hope. In 
time the whole Slavic world rang with the 
verses of the Sldvy Dcera. To the youth the 
poem became a creed to believe in and to the 
literates an example to follow. Schoolboys 
learned by heart most of the fine passages, 
with which especially the prologue abounds, 
vowing to avenge the wrongs done to their 
kinsmen. It was at this time that the pan- 
slavist spectre made its first appearance in 
Europe. Kollar was furiously attacked by 
Magyar and Austrian writers for fanning the 
national passions of the Slavs. In Hungary 
entire editions of the book were bought in and 
burned to prevent its circulation. But so great 
was the demand for it that many booklovers, 
unable to procure it, because of police vigi- 
lance, had complete copies transcribed by hand. 
In 1837 Kollar issued a short treatise in Ger- 
man on literary unity among the Slavs. This 
publication created another stir in Central 
Europe. 



i 3 2 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

A man who had influenced the destinies of 
Slovaks to a remarkable degree was Paul J. 
Safank (1795-186 1 ). Like Kollar, he too re- 
mained faithful to Bohemian. While the one 
was a poet, who prophesied a brighter future 
to the Slavs, the other was a savant, dispas- 
sionate and unprejudiced, who took upon him- 
self the task of revealing the treasures of their 
past. Safarik's volume on Slavic Antiquities, 
published in 1837, an< ^ Slavic Ethnography, 
that came out in 1842, attracted wide-spread 
attention. Accompanying the latter work was 
a map on which the Slavs, to the number 
of eighty millions, appeared to occupy, in un- 
broken continuity, an immense part of Europe, 
extending from the Bohemian Forest on the 
west to the Ural Mountains, and from the 
Polar Sea on the north to the ^Egean on 
the south. To the Slavs this picture was at 
once inspiring and pleasing. They took new 
courage and hope. The satisfaction they ex- 
perienced from Safarik's researches was only 
second to the astonishment felt by the rest of 
Europe at the potentialities of the people, 
shown as a unit, on the ethnographic map. 

No country welcomed the writings of Kol- 
lar and Safarik with greater enthusiasm than 
Slovakland. The Slovaks were proud of 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 133 

the achievements of their two countrymen, no 
doubt. But there was an infinitely deeper 
reason why they should rejoice. They felt 
that they were no longer without friends and 
allies. The knowledge that they were one of 
a family of eighty millions gratified and reas- 
sured them. Why fear for the future because 
the present was gloomy ? Did not Kollar, 
their prophet, predict that in time to come 
things would grow brighter? Enemies may 
persecute them, if they will. But their chil- 
dren will be free, and if not they, then their 
children's children. The Tatra Mountains 
were the cradle of their common ancestors. 
Would the Slavic peoples ever permit the 
alienation of that sacred land ? 

Kolldr and Safafik were already famous 
when Ludevit (Ludwig) Stiir, then a young- 
ster just returned from a college in Germany, 
was beginning to make his entrance into public 
life. An ardent Slovak by conviction, whereas 
Kollar and Safafik were Slovaks only by the 
accident of birth, a tireless and enthusiastic 
worker, and an idealist wholly devoted to the 
Hegelian school of philosophy, a theologian 
whom the versatility of his talent and the mul- 
titudinous needs of his country made succes- 
sively an orator, writer, journalist, politician, 



i 3 4 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

and soldier — Stiir was, according to the unani- 
mous verdict of his enemies and friends, the 
most remarkable champion of Slovak rights 
since Matthew Csak's days. Aiding him were 
Joseph M. H urban and Michael M. Hodza. 
Contemporaries and friends, these splendid pa- 
triots divided the enormous task that lay before 
them according to the respective talents and 
the natural bent of their minds. And so indis- 
pensable were they to one another and collect- 
ively to the cause which they served so well, 
that but for their united efforts it would prob- 
ably have failed. Very oddly, all three received 
the same training — for the Church. This felic- 
itous circumstance helped them to act in con- 
cert, even though it may have made their life 
work seem rather too one-sided. All three 
believed that by nationalization alone their 
nation could be raised to a higher plane, 
morally, socially and intellectually. Being pa- 
triotic Slovaks, it goes without saying that 
they were enthusiastic Slavonians at the same 
time. 

Nothing ever daunted Stiir. Opposition 
only served to redouble his energy. Roller 
frequently gave vent to his despair, seeing the 
utter hopelessness of the situation. The na- 
tive nobility alienated ; the Catholic clergy 




-£*^^-T27^^ 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 135 

hostile and irreconcilable ; the common people 
improvident and pathetically indifferent to 
their own fate — a disheartening outlook, in- 
deed ! All this Stur knew and saw, but he 
would not concede that everything was lost. 
With a will he set to work in the Pressburg 
Lyceum, in which institution he had held the 
post of assistant professor. In time, and thanks 
to his unflagging energy, his lecture room be- 
came the most popular of all the Protestant 
schools of learning in Slovakland. Hundreds 
of young men flocked to Pressburg to be near 
him. Such was the affection of the students 
for the master, that when in 1844 Stiir was re- 
moved from the lyceum, because of alleged 
anti-Magyar agitation, numbers of the youth 
left Pressburg to continue their studies else- 
where. To commemorate this exodus from 
Pressburg, John Matuska, one of the voluntary 
exiles, composed under the spur of that bitter 
moment a touching song, now so popular : 

Clouds above Tatra soar 
And lightning's thunders roar; 
O brothers, never fear : 
The skies again will clear, 
We shall live evermore ! * 

1 Nad Tatrou sa bliska, hromy divo biju : 

Nebojme se bratia, 
Vsak sa ony ztratia — 
Slovaci oziju ! 



136 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Happily for his nation Stiir devoted himself 
wholly to letters and journalism. His enemies 
might make it impossible for him to teach ; 
still they could not prevent him from express- 
ing his thoughts in writing. And, convinced 
that Bohemian was not less unsympathetic 
than Bernolak's literary invention, he grasped 
what he believed to be the most popular native 
dialect. The grammar he wrote has been 
termed a keystone of Slovak literature. On 
the lecture platform the same success marked 
his progress as in the literary field. Admiring 
followers took up " sturstina " at once, intro- 
ducing it not alone in journalism but in belles- 
lettres as well. While Bernolak's dialect has 
been preserved to us only in the poems of 
John Holly, Stiir's school has produced, and 
rightly claims as its own, a whole galaxy of 
clever writers. 

The appearance of the first number of Stiir's 
Ndrodnie Noviny (National Gazette) on Au- 
gust i, 1845, was an eventful day, long to be 
remembered. In this journal the nation at 
last found a fearless advocate and reliable 
guide. The publisher had to wait three years 
before the necessary concession was obtained 
from the government, and it is said that but 
for the gracious intercession of Baron Kulmer, 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 137 

it would have never been granted. The times 
were just as hostile to the Slovaks then as they 
are now. Palkovic, the venerable professor at 
the Pressburg Lyceum, for instance, incurred 
the disfavor of the government because he 
dared to change the name of his publication 
from Weekly Gazette to Slovak National Ga- 
zette. After a searching trial that nearly cost 
him the concession, Palkovic won his case, but 
the word "Slovak" was ordered stricken out 
from the title page ! A supplement, the 
Tatransky Orol (Tatra Eagle), accompanied 
every number of Stur's journal, and these two 
publications, one devoting its columns to po- 
litical and economical questions and the other 
to belles-lettres, constituted in those days the 
chief literary repository of the Stiir school of 
writers. For the treatment of scientific sub- 
jects Hurban founded, in 1846, an excellent 
review called the Slovenski Pohlady. 

Meantime, revolution was approaching, and 
while its terrors lasted, literary activity ceased 
altogether, except for revolutionary airs, with 
which Hurban, Chaliipka, Pauliny, Botto, 
Tomasik, Matiiska, and others greeted the 
dawn that was approaching, and with which 
bluecoated Slovak volunteers went marching 
to battle. It is worthy of note that most, 



1 38 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

if not all, of the revolutionary songs have 
survived. 

By turns a minister of the Gospel, a Biblical 
scholar, a writer on philological, educational 
and political subjects, an able organizer, a pro- 
found reasoner, Michael M. Hodza (1811- 
1870) had but two equals among his con- 
temporaries, Stur and H urban. As for con- 
summate tact and rare judgment he stood 
unrivalled. Many were the delicate and even 
dangerous missions intrusted to him. No 
Slovak was more cruelly or systematically per- 
secuted than he. His career was cut short at 
the height of its usefulness. Removed from 
the parish which was his only means of liveli- 
hood, excommunicated by the church of which 
his profound learning was an ornament, and ex- 
pelled by the government that feared and hated 
him, Hodza died a miserable exile. The 
Epigenes Slovenicus, already referred to, Vetin, 
and Der Slowak were his principal works. 

Some twenty volumes, in addition to count- 
less articles in various periodicals, bear testi- 
mony to the industry of Dr. Joseph M. 
Hurban (18 17-1888). Yet it is not as a liter- 
ary man that Hurban commands the respect of 
admiring posterity. He will be remembered 
as a tribune of his people. But for Hurban's 




Alljuj&j< 



4yc/ 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 139 

indefatigable labors, the storms of 1848 might 
have swept over the Hungarian highlands 
without arousing any interest on the part of 
the natives. Irresistible, indeed, must have 
been the powers of eloquence of this Slovak 
O'Connell to have moved to armed rebellion a 
nation that had remained quiescent for cen- 
turies. Stiir was the heart, Hodza the brains, 
but Hurban the soul of the revolutionary 
movement. He collected funds, provided 
weapons and ammunition, organized volunteer 
corps, chose trained soldiers to lead them, 
aided financially patriots who were in prison, 
besides conducting a vast correspondence. 

Certain traits all the Stiir writers had in 
common : the folk song constituted their favor- 
ite material and Slavic fraternity their prime 
motive. All began by being idealists, Hegel- 
ians, but some of them, in pursuing their ideals, 
ended in becoming visionaries, who lost them- 
selves hopelessly in the mazes of mysticism 
and general vagueness, to cite only the case of 
Samo Hrobon. This was a serious fault of 
the Stiir school. To lead an austere life, to 
scorn civic honors, and to devote one's whole 
being toward the deliverance of the nation from 
the bondage of ignorance formed part of their 
teaching. The nationalism of Kollar's poetry 



140 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

attracted them no less than Hegel's philosophy. 
One of their beliefs was that the Slavs, with 
the Slovaks in the forefront, would be the first 
to realize Hegel's future perfect state. Why ? 
Because they claimed to have a better under- 
standing of the philosophy of that noted Ger- 
man than he himself had. The Tatras, as the 
alleged seat of the aboriginal Slavs, were glori- 
fied in patriotic verse, and even Safank's re- 
searches were idealized by them. The ambition 
to rule was, in their eyes, reprehensible ; and 
they prophesied that Slavic territory would 
crush those who entered upon it with hostile 
intentions. 

Among the most renowned Stiirists should 
be named the poets Chalupka, Botto, Krai, 
Tomasik, and Sladkovic, and Kalincak, the 
novelist. 

Samuel Chalupka (i 8 12-1883), an evan- 
gelical pastor, was descended from a family of 
authors. The Turkish invasion of Upper 
Hungary and traditions and tales clustering 
around ruined castles were his most successful 
themes. Chaliipka's were the first poems to 
be published in the new Slovak language. 

Andrew Sladkovic (Braxatoris, 1 820-1 872), 
an evangelical pastor, is reputed to be the most 
talented poet ever born in Slovakland. Ma- 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 141 

rina> a lyric-epic poem, which portrays, in an 
idealized form, the object of the poet's own un- 
happy love affair, and Detvan, a romance of 
the time of Matthew Korvin, are supposed to 
be the culmination of his art. As a poet, 
Sladkovic ranks higher than John Kollar. 

Samuel Tomasik ( 1 8 1 3- 1 8 8 7) , an evangelical 
pastor, is chiefly remembered for the author- 
ship of Hej Slovdci, a song now familiar to 
every Slavonian. 

John Botto's (1 829-1 881) claim to fame 
rests on his having created the " Janosik," a 
type of good-natured brigand, a giant in 
strength, with the heart of a child, who takes 
it upon himself to administer justice in his 
own way, by robbing the rich to give to the 
poor. "Janosik" is a kind of Slovak Cid. 

John Kalincak (1 822-1 871) stands proba- 
bly unrivalled among novelists. Descended 
on his mother's side from an old zeman family, 
Kalincak gathered in his books much valuable 
material on the manners and habits of the 
zeman class of people, now almost wholly Mag- 
yarized. Restavrdcia, has been pronounced 
his chief work. 

Janko Krai (182 2- 18 76) was an eccentric, 
a " Bohemian," who preferred the companion- 
ship of shepherds to the chicanery of law, for 



142 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

which profession he had been educated. His 
lyric poetry bears the stamp of his roving 
nature and erratic temperament. 

Besides these, the following writers and 
versifiers deserve to be mentioned : Jacob 
Greichman, ballad writer of some note ; John 
Matiiska, remembered as the composer of 
Nad Tatrou set bliska ; Ladislav Pauliny, pas- 
tor, and uncle of William Pauliny-Toth (1828- 
1885), a bright satirist and humorist; John 
Francisci, known under the pseudonym " Janko 
Rimavsky " ; Paul Dobsinsky, pastor (1826- 
1877), an industrious compiler of folk-tales; 
Peter Kellner (pseudonym "Zaboj Hostin- 
sk^" 1823-1873), who professed to believe 
that the Tatras, according to him the birth- 
place of the Slavs, would yet astonish the 
world by the magnitude of ideas to issue from 
them; Nicolas Dohnany, a translator of By- 
ron and Shakespeare ; Dr. Charles Kuzmany 
(1 806-1 866), professor of theology and warm 
friend of Kollar and Safafik ; John Chalupka, 
pastor (1791-1871), the elder brother of Sam- 
uel Chalupka, a popular dramatist ; Nicholas 
Stephen Feriencik (1 825-1 881), a productive 
novelist and journalist; John Palarik (1822- 
1870), dramatist. 

Svetozar H urban (pseudonym " Vajansk^ "), 



LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 143 

born in 1847, * s a poet, journalist, and writer 
of the highest rank. The Tatras and the 
Ocean in verse and Withered Branch in prose 
are works of excellent merit. As editor-in- 
chief of the Ndrodnie Noviny, H urban is a 
power among his people. More than once in 
his life has this redoubtable champion been 
struck down by the brutal might of the tyrant. 
Paul Orszagh (pseudonym " Hviezdoslav"), 
born in 1849, 1S a lyric of recognized ability, 
as is " Martin Kukucin " (pseudonym of Dr. 
Matthew Benciir), born in i860, a novelist. 
Other contemporary writers, whose names are 
familiar to every Slovak reader, are : Helen 
Marothy-Soltesz, Therese Vansa, Ludmila 
Podjavorinsky, Martin Sladkovic, Tichomir 
Milkin, and J. Somolicky\ Among essayists 
and historical writers, Francis Sasinek, Paul 
Krizko, Andrew Kmet, Joseph Holuby, 
Joseph Skultety, etc., excel. With the name 
of Stephen Marcus Daxner (1822-1892) is 
linked the authorship of the famous " Memo- 
randum." 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 

ILLUSTRATIVE of the national traits of 
* the motley population of Hungary is the 
following humorous estimate found in Bielek's 
work in German, published in 1837 : 

" The Magyar is proud and happy when he 
can ride a fine horse ; the Slovak when he can 
talk familiarly to a person of distinction ; the 
German when he secures the burgomaster's 
staff of office ; the Rumun when twirling a 
handsomely carved cane ; the Little Russian 
when he attains to clerical honors; the Jew 
when renting landed property ; the gypsy when 
parading in scarlet trousers." 

Anecdotes are related of the proverbial 
humility of the Slovak, and of the love of fight 
which again is said to be characteristic of the 
Magyar. A Magyar peasant runs to a tavern 
where a combat is in progress. " Why don't 
you take a stick with you, Pista ? " admonishes 
his wife. " It is not necessary," replies Pista, 
" I guess the man whom I tackle will have a 
stick." 

144 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 145 

How many Slovaks there are in Hungary 
is a matter of speculation. The official count, 
which is notoriously unreliable and partial to 
the dominant race, computed their number at 
2,008,744 in 1900. A prominent attorney in 
Martin assured the writer that, although no 
one in his native village spoke Magyar, yet 
every inhabitant had been returned in the offi- 
cial sheets as belonging to that race. Vam- 
bery's figure in a recent work is 1,800,000. 
Safarik estimated the number of his fellow- 
countrymen in 1842 at 2,753,ooo. 1 Of this he 
credited 1,953,000 to the Catholics and 800,- 
000 to the Protestants. Possibly Safarik may 
have been wrong. In 1850 the first census, 
according to nationalities, was taken in Hun- 
gary, and this official account gave to the 
Slovaks 1,704,000, or 13 % of the entire popula- 
tion. The Magyars appeared to have 4, 1 66,000, 
or 36.9$ of the whole. 2 Now, however, official 
figures begin to puzzle us, for while in 1900 
the Magyars claimed 8,679,014, or 45.4 % of 
the entire population, this being an increase 
between 1 850-1 900 of 80 % the Slovaks came 
in for 2,008,744 in 1900, or 10.5$ of the whole, 
an increase of only 32.6 % between 1850-1900! 

.' l Slovansky Ndrodopis. Prague, 1842, p. 98. 

2 Czoernig's Ethnographie der Ost. Ung. Monarchie. Wien, 1855. 



i 4 6 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

How is this inconsistency to be explained ? 
The Slovaks, with their known fecundity — 
families of 10-12 children among them being 
nothing uncommon — have increased during 
the last 50 years only 32.6 %, while the Mag- 
yars, among whom large families are rather 
the exception than the rule, have gained 80 % 
during the same period of time. Taking as a 
basis Safank's computation, which is surely 
nearer the truth than the census of 1850, and 
deducting from it about 80,000 Slovaks settled 
in Moravia and elsewhere, there should have 
been 2,673,000 Slovaks in 1842. If the in- 
crease between 1842- 1900 had amounted to 
only 45 *f , or 1,202,850, Slovaks should now 
be 3,875,850 strong. Every one who has ever 
travelled through northwestern Hungary is 
satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the 
official figures, quoted above, are inaccurate. 
When it is remembered that the rural popula- 
tion is purely Slovak ; and that, with the ex- 
ception of the officials, school teachers, and 
nobility, the rank and file of the townspeople 
are of the same nationality, the conclusion is 
irresistible that the real figure is nearer to 
3,000,000 than 2,000,000. There are, besides, 
colonies of Slovaks, large and small, through- 
out the whole kingdom. Some of these colo- 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 147 

nies date back to the time when the country, 
laid waste and depopulated by the Turks, 
needed agriculturists to till it. The phrase 
" a nation over 3,000,000 strong," with which 
we meet frequently in the Slovak press, must 
not be taken literally, however. What it 
means is that people of the Slovak blood num- 
ber 3,000,000. Naturally many of these, the 
nobility and the zemans to a man, having re- 
nounced their nationality can no longer be 
classed as Slovaks. Apropos of the origin of 
the nobility, " Were the lords all of Magyar 
and the peasants altogether of Slavic de- 
scent ? " The mass of the peasantry, in gen- 
eral, were of the same race as their lords. In 
the Slovak counties they were Slovak ; in the 
Magyar counties of the centre, they were 
Magyars ; and in Croatia and Slavonia they 
were of that nationality. 

In Bacs, Bodrog and Szerem are large and 
compact settlements of " Rusnaks," or Little 
Russians, who came to Hungary between the 
fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. These 
Rusnaks mix with the Slovaks in the east, and 
further east they replace them entirely. They 
number about half a million. Slovaks by speech 
and Orthodox Russians in creed, these Rus- 
naks have been for years a bone of contention 



148 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

between Slovak and Russian etymologists, 
both contending parties claiming them as their 
own. Safafik was of the opinion that there 
were only Protestant Slovaks and Catholic 
Slovaks. Of Orthodox Slovaks — and the Rus- 
naks all profess that faith — he would hear 
nothing. It was his judgment that the Rus- 
naks are what their name betrays them to be, 
Russians. 

.An official publication describes the Slo- 
vaks as 

" generally of a lofty stature ; well built, 
with broad faces and prominent cheekbones. 
For the most part they let their light hair 
grow long, but do not wear beards or mus- 
taches. Their dress of white baize is comple- 
ted by a broad leathern girdle, a broad-brimmed 
hat, and sandals. Their dwellings are frail. 
They are simple, religious, humble and quiet, 
but when heated, quarrelsome. Their songs 
are as a rule of a melancholy character. They 
do any kind of work and are industrious. By 
preference they occupy themselves with the 
breeding of cattle and sheep and go down to 
the Great Plain to reap the harvest. They 
are very skilful in domestic manufactures. 
Their women are celebrated for their em- 
broideries." 

" From immemorial times the Slovaks were 
a nation of peasants and shepherds," says 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 149 

Ziga Pauliny-Toth. " For these two vocations 
the love of our people is deep rooted and, 
although they may be taught other callings, 
they are happiest when ploughing, sowing and 
reaping. 

" Generally the soil is poor, and with the 
exception of the Lower Trencin and the south- 
ern portion of Nitra and Pressburg, where 
the country is rich, nowhere in Slovakland is 
the soil fertile enough to support the farmer in 
independence. Of the many evils which still 
weigh down our peasantry," continues Pauliny- 
Toth " one is illiteracy. Before the fifties the 
people were, with some exceptions, wholly illit- 
erate. At the present time there are 51.44 % 
in Hungary unable to read or write. In the 
twelve Slovak counties the percentage of illit- 
erates is somewhat below the average obtaining 
in the kingdom, except in the counties of 
Trencin, Zemplin, Sarys and Ung, where it 
rises a trifle above. Still, the fact remains 
that over one half our population is unlettered." 

A grave fault of the small farmer is his un- 
progressivemess. He insists on cultivating his 
fields in pretty nearly the same primitive fash- 
ion as his father and grandfather before him. 
Naturally the amount of the crops corresponds 
to the methods employed. Again, the soil is 
not sufficiently responsive. To this latter cir- 
cumstance is probably due most of the wretch- 



ISO THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

edness with which one meets in Slovakland. 
In passing through the country the traveller is 
constantly reminded of the hills of Utah and 
Colorado. The woodlands which are unfit for 
cultivation will average 15$ throughout, while 
in Turec the average rises to 33 % in Orava to 
30$, Liptov 41% Zvolen 32 % Novohrad 26^, 
Gemer 47 % Spis 37 % and Sarys 43 %. In Orava 
County there are 2 76 1 farms that average from 
1 to 5 acres of land of which only about two- 
thirds is arable. One village in that county 
bears the highly suggestive name of Hladovka 
— Hungerville. With a tiny patch of ground 
that yields hardly anything else than oats and 
potatoes — in the north part of Orava, where 
freezing weather comes early, potatoes are 
often dug from underneath the snow — it is as- 
tonishing how the highland peasant manages 
to pay his taxes. , There is a ground tax, the 
per capita tax, communal assessment, travelling 
tax, ecclesiastical dues, notarial tax, midwife 
tax, etc. A typical case of over-taxation : A 
poor mountaineer in a hamlet in Turec, with 
real and personal property valued at 1 80 florins, 
which is equivalent to $72, was taxed with 18 
florins per year ! 

Among the most lovable traits of the people 
is their love of music. No less than 5000 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 151 

folk songs were collected in the neighboring 
Margravate of Moravia, and it is claimed that 
fully one half of these, some of them admitted 
to be tonal gems and by far the best specimens 
in the collection, are the product of Slovak in- 
ventiveness. In the more modern airs the 
temperament of the gypsy and Magyar music 
is plainly discernible. But, on the whole, Slo- 
vak songs have retained the rugged simplicity 
of the folk song. That they are very old is 
plain, although Milan Lichard believes that 
there is no warrant for the assertion, repeated 
by certain enthusiasts, that some of the songs 
date back to pagan times. Almost without 
exception, the folk songs are written in a minor 
key, this giving them a sad and melancholy 
coloring, quite in keeping with the unhappy lot 
of the people. 

Sheep farming is carried on extensively and 
with excellent results. Usually sheep are raised 
on shares by the communes. In the spring- 
time the "baca" or shepherd-in-chief takes his 
charge to the pasture on the elevated table 
lands, caring for them there with his assistants 
till the autumn, when the sheep are returned 
to their respective owners. In the hills the 
sheep are lambed, shorn of wool, and milked. 
The milk is used in the making of "brindza," 



i 5 2 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

a sharp-tasting, strong-flavored cheese which 
finds a ready market in central European coun- 
tries. The profit which arises at the end of 
the season is divided equitably among the 
owners. Cattle breeding yields a handsome 
revenue to the farmer. The census taker 
found within the Slovak territory in 1898 
1,059,529 head of cattle, 249,818 horses, 3452 
donkeys, 159 mules, 22,724 goats, 639,297 hogs, 
1,31 1,777 sheep, 3,099,606 fowl, and 117,403 
beehives. 

The most pretentious house in every hamlet 
is invariably the property of a zeman family. 
The villagers call them residences. A lower 
class of nobility, these zemans used to be a 
power in the land until the serfs were liber- 
ated. Kossuth was descended on his mother's 
side from a Slovak zeman family. Exempt 
from taxation and enjoying the fruit of forced 
labor, the zemans lived for centuries in ease 
and affluence. The moment serfage was abol- 
ished the zemans found themselves on the 
decline. Slowly but surely their estates are 
now passing in the ownership of enterprising 
Semites, while the " Most Powerful Lords," as 
the humble peasant was wont to entitle them, 
are glad to earn their living as minor govern- 
ment officials. Obeying the law which has 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 153 

guided the nobles in all ages and in all coun- 
tries, they all have joined the ruling element 
in Hungary. The Slovak zemans no longer 
exist. 

Two festering sores sap the vitality of the 
unsophisticated highlander — drink and usury. 
Nowhere in the country have these terrible 
social evils taken such a firm grip as here in 
the mountains, " where rock begins and bread 
ceases." 

It is true that the foremost mortgage banks 
lend money at a moderately low rate of inter- 
est, providing the borrower will take, say 20,000 
Austrian crowns. But of what advantage is 
the Hypothecary Bank at Budapest to the 
small farmer? He is compelled to borrow 
from a local banking institution, and at what 
cost ! Including commissions and disburse- 
ments charged the interest will amount to J-8 
% and not infrequently to 14 % On short 
loans the borrower has to pay as much as 50 %. 
A savings bank in Slovakland with a capital of 
60,000 cr., reserve fund of 18,000 cr., and de- 
posits amounting to 160,000 cr., cleared an 
annual profit of 22,000 cr. The average profit 
of banks in 1894 was said to be 13.58 % on the 
capital invested and in 1888 29.56 %. 

Every Slovak of intelligence deplores the 



154 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

drink habit among his people, and time and 
again appeals have been made in the newspa- 
pers and otherwise to regulate the sale of 
liquor in the highlands — apparently all to no 
purpose. The sellers are always successful 
in blocking every attempt at reform. Why 
should these pest dens continue their nefarious 
trade unrestricted ? An alarming feature of 
the rum business is that in ninety cases out of 
a hundred the rum dealer is apt to be a money 
lender to the poor country folks, which of 
course implies that he is a heartless usurer. 
Some years ago the Catholic clergy, seeing 
what ravages the drink habit was making 
among their flock, started to organize temper- 
ance societies to which was given the name of 
rosaries. Singularly enough, the government 
promptly suppressed the rosary organizations 
on the charge that they fostered panslavism. 
It was noted at the time that the chief wit- 
nesses against the leaders of the rosaries were 
the rum sellers. 

Emigration from Slovakland is assuming 
such alarming proportions that it threatens to 
depopulate it. " Certain people would make 
the public believe," remarks Joseph L. Holuby, 
" that this emigration in masses is due to for- 
cible Magyarization. That is an error. The 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 155 

hungry man is not concerned with gram- 
mars, be they Magyar or Slovak. What he 
wants is bread. To him the quarrel between 
his nation and the Magyars is, after all, of 
secondary importance. He seeks work. It is 
no secret that people emigrate from districts 
where Magyars are all but unknown.'* In 
the two decades between 1 880-1900, it is 
computed, emigration from Hungary was as 
follows : 

Via Hungary a . . 372,979 

" Antwerp 87,609 

Genoa 9,5c* 1 

470,089 

How many of these are to be credited to 
Slovaks ? Roland Hegediis, an authority on 
the subject of emigration from Hungary, esti- 
mated the number of American Slovaks at 
160,000-200,000, in 1899. As the onrush of 
immigration to the United States has been 
especially great within the past five years, it 
is no exaggeration to say that at the present 
time the United States are the home of some 
400,000 Slovaks. 

Already the exodus of so many people be- 
gins to disturb local economic conditions. For 
example, employers are heard to complain of 



156 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

lack of working men. Wages have gone up. 
The price of land has risen. A few figures 
will show what kind of material America is 
getting from Slovakland. During 1869- 1890 
the county of Spis had lost by emigration 
14$ of youths from twenty to twenty-five years 
of age, the county of Sarys 34 %. Of men 
whose ages varied from twenty-six to thirty 
years, Spis lost 3 1 % Sarys 44 % Abauj Torna 
22 % and Zemplin 16 %. Owing to emigra- 
tion the old ratio of 100 men to 103 women, 
heretofore prevalent, has undergone a remark- 
able change. In 1890 there were, as against 
100 males, 1 1 5 females in Spis, 1 1 6 in Sarys, and 
115 in Abauj Torna. In many instances land 
values have arisen 100 % because of the influx 
of American money earned in the coal fields 
of Pennsylvania. The postal bank at Kosice, 
which is the distributing centre for the north- 
eastern counties, received in 1896 six and 
one half millions of florins in remittances from 
America. The village of Biitka in Zemplin, 
with 1 156 Slovak inhabitants, was the grateful 
recipient in ten years of 351,435 florins from 
across the ocean. 1 

To regulate " wanton " emigration a special 

1 Most of the figures adduced here are taken from Dr. Emil Sto- 
dola's Prispevok ku Statistike Slovens ka, 1902. 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 157 

law was enacted in 1903. The state promised 
to keep a watchful eye over its subjects even 
beyond the seas " in their own interest and for 
the good of the State." Pithily a newspaper 
characterized this determination of the Hun- 
garian Government to go into the steamship- 
ticket business : " Why do people leave their 
native country ? Clearly because they are being 
neglected by the home government. Suddenly 
the state, which has done nothing for them 
while in Hungary, becomes solicitous about 
their well-being, promising to watch over and 
protect them after they have taken leave of 
their homes." 

What is the national dress of the Slovaks ? 
This is hard to answer. One might almost 
say that there are as many distinct styles as 
there are counties. Near industrial centres 
the handsome and striking national dress has 
partly disappeared ; but as industries are an 
exception and agriculture the rule in the high- 
lands, national costumes are still worn in abun- 
dance. The adolescent youth, the married 
couple, the old folks, each class affects a garb 
suited to its respective fancies or station in 
life. Dresses differing either in material or 
pattern are worn at such functions as weddings, 
funerals, dances, etc. 



158 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Commonly, the men are smooth-shaven and 
wear long hair. The younger set, and par- 
ticularly those who have served in the army, 
cut their hair short. Near the boundary line, 
where they mix with the Magyars, both young 
and old are partial to mustaches. In the 
matter of trousers the Slovak tailor is as 
whimsical as his Magyar brother-in-law. While 
in certain districts fashion seems to dictate 
tight-fitting trousers, in other places again the 
pantaloons that are worn attain to the propor- 
tion of a bifurcated skirt. The same appears 
to be the case with hats. 

The waistcoat only covers the chest and 
shoulder-blades. It is sleeveless. When the 
weather is cold it may be exchanged for a 
fur-lined "kamisol." As for the top coat, its 
nomenclature is as varied as the style in which 
makers cut it. " Halena" is a popular name, 
meaning literally a wrap, though "hufia" is 
another well-known designation for a surtout. 
Of light, black, brown, or gray cloth, the halena 
may be either short, to the belt-line, or if fancy 
so dictates, long, to the knees. Short or long, 
all halenas are appropriately braided on the 
collar, in the centre of the back, in front, and 
in the corners of the skirt. No finery is com- 
plete without needlework, the designs being 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 159 

lineal, geometrical, figurative, and floral. Of 
embroidery men seem to be as fond as women, 
displaying it generously on their shirt collars 
and sleeves and on waistcoats, "lajblik." 
When the latter article is made of cloth, it is 
sure to be ornamented with rows of fancy 
buttons, in lieu of embroidery. A loose cloak 
is worn over the shoulders. In the higher 
altitudes a fur coat has been found to be an 
indispensable garment, and the sagacious moun- 
taineer has a saying : " Until the Easter holi- 
days keep the sheepskin on ; after them do not 
let it go." " Krpce," which is a moccasin-like 
sandal fastened to the foot with thongs, was 
until recent years universally worn. The pride 
of every village gallant (among Moravian Slo- 
vaks) is a hat cockade, " pierko " or " kosirek," 
made of plumes or feathers — cock and heron 
feathers most commonly. To knock down 
one's "kosirek" would be an insult that no 
village beau could let go unpunished. 

It is customary for girls to go bareheaded 
and to braid their hair, except in Upper 
Trencin and Lower Nitra. " Cepec," a sort of 
bonnet, is the distinguishing head-gear of mar- 
ried women. Among the well-to-do peasants 
down south, where the soil is rich, it is not un- 
common for a bride to have in her wardrobe 



160 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

as many as sixty or eighty bonnets or " parts," 
a diadem-like head ornament with ribbons 
attached to it at the back, thirty detachable 
embroidered sleeves, thirty petticoats, etc. A 
thoughtful mother will begin to work on the 
trousseau of her daughter the year of her 
birth, so that most of the apparel may be 
complete by the time she arrives at maturity. 
Usually an outfit like that will do for the life- 
time of the woman, passing by inheritance 
to children and grandchildren, like jewelry in 
other countries. 

First to the body comes the "rubac" or 
chemise, homespun of hemp or flax. Cloth 
skirts are in universal favor, the prevalent tints 
being blue, black, and green. In the summer- 
time, cloth skirts are replaced by linen "let- 
nica." In some counties skirts of customary 
length are worn ; in others again, as in Nitra 
and Pressburg, they barely reach to the knees. 
Attached to the skirt is the waist, or " zivotok," 
"brucel," or "kordulka," as it is alternately 
called. The " lajblik," which corresponds to the 
bodice, is a separate garment. Over the skirt 
is worn a tunic or " fertuch," as it is called. 
On this piece is lavished the daintiest em- 
broidery. In some districts the head is covered 
with a " polka," this being a strip of white linen, 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 161 

muslin, or chiffon about nine feet in length, 
which is wound around the head like a tur- 
ban and tied behind, permitting the ends, also 
highly embroidered, to be seen to advantage. 
The feet are encased in " cizma," top boots. 
Justly famous is the needlework of Slovak 
women ; chemises, guimps, bodices, cravats, 
aprons, and sleeves, the latter always puffed to 
the elbow and flowing, — all these articles being 
rich with embroidery. 

A familiar figure on every European high- 
way is the Slovak tinker. Having seen him 
once, you will always recognize him by his 
picturesque hat, long-hair, and mantle. With 
rolls of wire and mouse-traps slung over his 
back, the tinker is a tireless trotter who feels 
himself at home everywhere, without, however, 
losing his national type. Almost all the tin- 
kers come from the district traversed by the 
river Kysuca, opposite the Silesian frontier. In 
the town of Caca (Csacza), where they have 
their rendezvous, you may hear these tinkers 
conversing together in tolerably good English, 
French, German, and Russian, besides minor 
European tongues. House peddling supports 
hundreds of families who are attached to the 
barren districts. There are travelling vendors 
of wicker-ware, of hats, embroideries, spices, 



162 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

and ornamental knick-knacks, of cloth and cali- 
co prints, of mouse-traps, etc. As raftsmen 
and shingle makers, Slovak skill is much ap- 
preciated in the lumber regions. In the har- 
vest time they go down to the great wheat belt 
to hire themselves as farm laborers. There is 
depressing poverty everywhere ; but here in 
the sub-Carpathian cliffs it is crushing. Ex- 
treme poverty drives thousands to seek a liveli- 
hood in other pursuits than agriculture. In 
winter the staple food of the peasantry is cab- 
bage and potatoes ; this is especially true in 
upper Trencin County. 

It is estimated that there live in Pest, the 
capital, 25,000 Slovaks. Another city with a 
large Slovak population is Csaba, in the county 
of the same name, with some 30,000 inhabitants. 
Yet neither Pest nor Csaba, nor yet Nitra, the 
one-time seat of Svatopluk's kingdom, holds the 
same place in the affection of the Slovaks as 
Turciansky Sv. Martin (Turocz Szt. Marton), 
a little town of some 3000 people, on the river 
Turec, which is an affluent of the Vah. Here, 
high up in the mountains, where the winters 
are long and severe, the Slovaks have estab- 
lished their national centre. In the early 
sixties the municipality of Martin, which was 
then a village possessing no advantage or at- 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 163 

traction over other country places, excepting 
the patriotism of its citizens, offered its hos- 
pitality to the "Matica Slovenska." That 
representative body was being persecuted by 
the government. The leaders of the Matica 
were so touched by the generous offer that 
Martin was then and there voted the future 
capital of the nation. In June, 1861, a memo- 
rable meeting was held there at which the dele- 
gates present adopted the " Memorandum," a 
"Slovak Bill of Rights." Stephen Daxner 
drafted the document. Since 1861, Martin has 
witnessed all or almost all the popular assem- 
blies held. Here stands the " Dom," contain- 
ing both an interesting museum and a library. 
Here some of the principal newspapers are 
printed and published, like the Ndrodnze No- 
viny, the review Slovens kd Pohlady y etc.; here 
theatrical performances are given. The " Spe- 
vokol," a singing society, and "2ivena," the 
foremost woman's society, have their head- 
quarters here. Likewise the "Tatra Bank" 
is established in Martin. Annually, in the 
month of August, a kind of national reunion 
takes place in the diminutive capital. Some- 
how or other a visitor to Martin feels that a 
tactical blunder has been made in selecting so 
small a place for the centre of an important 



164 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

mission work. A just cause will often fail, or, 
if not that, at least suffer, for lack of a suitable 
environment. 

Discouraging, if not critical, is the situation 
in regard to schools. Sad to say, there is not 
a single higher school in St. Stephen's king- 
dom, public or sectarian, where Slovak is either 
taught as a subject or used as a medium of 
instruction. Even the university at Pest is 
closed to the Slovak language, although it 
supports a chair of Croatian and has promised 
to erect one of Old Slavic (obsolete). Is it 
Svatopluk's ghost again ? Or is it a question 
of utility ? Hardly that. Any tinker will tell 
you that with his despised Slovak tongue he 
can travel over a vast territory in Europe and 
make himself understood, while with Magyar 
he is utterly lost the moment he crosses the 
boundary of the fatherland. 

Elementary schools are of several kinds : 
confessional or sectarian, state, and communal. 
In the 1 6 Slovak counties there were in 1899 
596 Protestant (Augsburg) schools, 351 Helve- 
tian, 2014 Catholic, 410 Russian Orthodox, 
117 Jewish, 342 state, 190 communal, 69 mixed. 
Divided by the language which is used in 
teaching, 519 were Slovak, 35 Russian, 2076 
Magyar, 6 German, 1189 Slovak-Magyar, 192 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 165 

Russian-Magyar, 117 German-Magyar. Of 
the teachers 16 % could not show their training 
certificates, being by occupation agriculturists 
and mechanics. 

Slovakland supports 33 gymnasia, 6 real 
schools, 16 pedagogical institutes, 2 Protestant 
theological schools, 5 Catholic and 1 Russian 
Orthodox seminaries, several convents, and 
about 140 trade schools and commercial schools, 
but in all of these instruction is in Magyar. 
Students are forbidden to converse in Slovak 
either in or out of school. This rule is strictly 
enforced, non-compliance therewith being pun- 
ished with expulsion for panslavism. To read 
a Slovak book or a newspaper is a still graver 
offence, and teachers will not hesitate to go 
through the student's trunk and effects in 
search of the interdicted literature. 

Six Catholic bishoprics attend to the spirit- 
ual needs of the faithful in the highlands, 
yet not one incumbent is a Slovak. Formerly 
there were Slovak libraries in Catholic semina- 
ries, but the ruthless hand of the oppressor has 
scattered every one of them to the winds. 

An important personage in every commune 
is the " notary," whose office corresponds some- 
what to that of the city clerk in our Western 
States. One and all of these notaries are un- 



166 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

compromising apostles of Magyarization. The 
mayor who attaches his signature to Magyar 
official documents, which he does not under- 
stand, is a helpless tool of the notary. The 
village has to do the notary's bidding. In 
many instances he is the local postmaster, and 
keeps a record of births, marriages, and deaths. 
The notary, by reason of his official position, 
possesses information within reach of no other 
inhabitant in the place. Nothing escapes him. 
He knows accurately what newspapers and 
books you read, whether you order your goods 
from "patriotic" or Slavonian firms. The 
local priests and teachers, if they be Slovaks, 
must be on guard before the notary, knowing 
that he watches and reports their every action. 
Even the butcher, the innkeeper, and the tailor 
find it profitable to court the notary's favor. 
Elections without his assistance or interfer- 
ence are unthinkable. 

Only one kind of Slovak reading matter 
meets the gracious pardon of the mighty no- 
tary. It is the Vlast a Svet and Slovenskd 
Noviny y the two most widely circulated Slo- 
vak publications, but with a Magyar tendency. 
Slovakland is called systematically the " High- 
lands" in these papers; Slovaks, "High- 
landers." These two worthy journals publish 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS 167 

excerpts from Magyar literature ; they print 
the pictures of ministers from time to time — 
but Slovak authors and their productions are 
under ban in their columns. 

In 1880 a society was established, having 
for its main object the Magyarization of proper 
names. Thousands of Slovaks have for divers 
reasons changed their old-time patronymics. 

In 1898 a law was created whereby non- 
Magyar towns and villages shall assume Mag- 
yar names. Communes, says this law, can 
have but one official name, z. e. t Magyar. 
This name shall be designated by the Ministry 
of the Interior. 

Justice is administered only in Magyar, not- 
withstanding the plain language of the " Law 
of Nationalities." Attorneys may not plead in 
Slovak. Government officials, the clergy, and 
teachers are sure of promotion if they Mag- 
yarize ostentatiously. 

In the railway, postal, and telegraph service, 
Slovak is studiously suppressed, and you will 
not find a railway or postal guide, manual, 
notice, or map containing one sentence in that 
language. No one ever thinks of appointing 
an official to a position in the highlands be- 
cause of his knowledge of Slovak. On the 
contrary, officials will openly deny a knowledge 



168 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

of Slovak, for fear of being taken for panslavs. 
As a matter of fact, you may be refused a rail- 
road ticket if you ask for it in the language of 
Svatopluk. 

In some towns, having pure Slovak popu- 
lation, you may see none but Magyar signs 
above shops and stores. A mechanic will hang 
out a Magyar sign above his workroom, not 
because he is forced by law to do so, but be- 
cause a Slovak sign would be looked upon as 
a provocation involving the sure loss of the 
patronage of the notary, the forester, and the 
rest of the local dignitaries. Besides, it is a 
matter of pride with every notary to have as 
few of these objectionable signs in " their " 
villages as possible. 



MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW. 

TN their vernacular the Magyars call Hungary 
* " Magyarorszag," or, literally, " Magyar- 
land." Is Hungary the land of somebody 
else, too? Certainly not, say the Magyars. And 
herein may be found the key to the whole situa- 
tion, a situation very perplexing indeed, when it 
is considered that the Magyar element consti- 
tutes hardly one half of the entire population 
of the country. Of late it is contended that 
the fatherland can be neither great nor happy 
unless all the inhabitants are Magyarized. 
Szechenyi, the great patriot, it is pointed out, 
could have had nothing else in mind when he 
declared : " There are many who think that 
Hungary has been. For my part, I like to 
think that Hungary shall be." 

The year when the Magyars first set foot 
on the soil of Hungary may never be known. 
Writers caution us not to accept too readily 
the many stories and legends which have been 
woven around the early doings of these Tu- 
ranians by ingenious native historians. We 

169 



i;o THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

are assured on good authority that Arpad 
never existed ; that it is not the name of a 
person, signifying, as it does, a rank. Almos 
likewise is said to be a mythical hero. The con- 
gress at Pusztaszeri was never held, and hence 
no covenant was entered into there. Similarly 
the election of early dukes should be relegated 
to the realm of fables. 1 What battles the Mag- 
yars fought during the first decades of their 
occupation of Hungary, and with whom, is 
equally uncertain. No ray of light glimmers 
through the darkness which enshrouds the 
happenings of those distant days. The first 
authentic account that we have of them is 
that they assisted the Germans, in 907, at the 
battle of Pressburg, where Svatopluk's Great 
Moravian Kingdom was destroyed. After 
this, driving the Slavonians north and south, 
the Magyars seized the fertile plains of the in- 
terior, the Alfold, which they have regarded as 
their favorite home ever since. 

" Who came first, Magyars or Slovaks ? " 
This is a vexatious chapter in Hungarian his- 
tory. " It is of utmost importance to know," 
remarks a Magyar writer (Volf), " what peo- 
ple, if any, have a better claim to priority in 
Hungary than we. The Germans, Croatians, 

1 Julius Botto, in the Slovenske Pohlady, part 12, xv. (1895). 



MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 171 

Servians, Russians, and Rumuns all came later 
than we Magyars, some of them even settling 
here quite recently. As far as the Armenians, 
Greeks, and Bulgarians, and other minor 
nationalities are concerned, that is a matter 
that hardly merits consideration. We also 
possess information bearing on the colonies of 
Slovenes, Bohemians, Moravians, and Slovaks. 
The only moot point is, whether the Slovenes 
and Slovaks of our times, or whatever is left 
of them, are descended in a direct line from 
the people who constituted the Great Mora- 
vian Kingdom and hence can claim priority." 
Then the author proceeds to answer his own 
questions by saying that the Magyars did not 
find any Slovaks at the time of the conquest, 
the latter having migrated to Hungary at a 
much later period ; that the Slovaks of the 
present day must not be confounded with the 
nation that lived in the time of Cyril and 
Methodius and King 1 Svatopluk between the 
rivers Morava (March), Danube, and Hron ; 
that those of them that remained at the time 
of the conquest were soon assimilated by the 
Magyars. " Our Slovaks of Upper Hungary," 
we read in a work issued by the Ministry 
of Commerce, . " came much later, after the 

1 Properly speaking, " Prince " Svatopluk and not King. 



i;2 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Hussite wars, from Bohemia and Moravia, and 
still later from Galicia." 

Competent scholars like Safank settled the 
question of the ancestry of the Slovaks a long 
time ago, and settled it for good. Still, Mag- 
yar writers are so persistent in repeating this 
mischievous invention, and it is responsible, 
directly and indirectly, for so much abuse on 
the part of a certain class of politicians, who 
affect to treat the Slovaks in their own home 
as colonists, even as foreigners, that the matter 
for this reason demands elucidation. 

Let us see about the contention of the Mag- 
yars, that they assimilated the Slovaks soon 
after the conquest. If we are to believe their 
own story, the Magyars came to Hungary at 
the end of the ninth century. Henrik Marc- 
zali reasons that, as the chieftains usually went 
to battle with about 20,000 1 horsemen, his 
people, on invading Hungary, must have been 
250,000 strong and numbered, including slaves, 
500,000 souls. Scattered over the vast area of 
the country between the Carpathians and the 
river Sava and from Transylvania and Buko- 
vina on the east to Austria proper on the west, 
how many Magyars could there have been to 

1 Paul Krizko in the Slovenskt* Pohlady, September, 1898, in an 
article entitled " Home of the Church Slavic and the Magyar Occu- 
pation." 



MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 173 

a square mile? During the fierce wars that 
followed the conquest their ranks must have 
been thinned perceptibly. Is it believable that 
the conquerors were in a condition to absorb 
the natives, who were presumably more numer- 
ous than they ? Again, is it probable that a 
race inferior in culture could have absorbed a 
superior race? When the Magyars invaded 
Hungary, the Slavonians and Germans were 
permanently attached to the soil, cultivating it. 
Christianity and letters had already taken a 
deep root in the land. In everything, but in 
the art of war, the indigenous people surpassed 
the newcomers, who were as yet nomads. Con- 
tradict it as they may, the truth is that the Ger- 
mans and Slavonians were the first to teach 
the Magyars the crude arts of western culture. 
Everywhere the influence of the superior race 
was manifest. St. Stephen, who was crowned 
in the year 1000 King of Hungary, organized 
its administration in imitation of Slavonian 
state institutions. Even the titles of his officials, 
"Nadorispan" (Nadvorni zupan), "udvarnok" 
(dvornik), " ispan " (zupan), he borrowed from 
his Slavonic neighbors. Christianity came to 
the Magyars from the same source. Slavonic 
priests surrounded St. Stephen's throne — to 
mention the name of St. Vojtech, Bishop of 



174 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 



Prague — and Magyar religious terminology is 
full of Slavisms. Most of the Magyar words 
relating to agriculture, field implements, plants, 
fishes, birds, trade, house-building, food, drink, 
social life, the notions of pleasure and pain and 
bodily ailments are either purely Slavonic or 
show unmistakable influence of that language. 
In 1830 Safarik wrote to Francis Palack^: 
" My friend, the most ancient repository of our 
Old Slavic is to be found in Magyar. You 
may laugh, but it is nevertheless true that our 
hairy ancestors in Scythia and Sarmatia used 
to say galamb, kasa, barat, instead of holub 
(pigeon), kosa (scythe), brat (brother), exactly 
as our bearded Magyars do nowadays." 1 

The Magyars could not have assimilated the 



1 A small illustration of 


how the Magyars 


have borrowed from 


their Slavonian 


neighbors : 






SLOVAK 




MAGYAR 


ENGLISH 


slama 




szalma 


straw 


seno 




szena 


hay 


brazda 




barazda 


furrow 


stolar 




asztalos 


cabinet-maker 


masiar 




meszaros 


butcher 


podkova 




patko 


horseshoe 


kovac 




kovacs 


smith 


stvrtok 




csutortok 


Thursday 


piatok 




pentek 


Friday 


milost 




malaszt 


grace 


brana 




borona 


harrow 


oblok 




ablak 


window 


pohir 




pohar 


goblet 



MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 175 

ancient Slovaks, " children of the soil of whom 
no one knew when they came," for the reason 
that they never colonized Slovakland. Relia- 
ble writers like Krizko assure us that in the 
tenth and eleventh centuries Magyars were all 
but unknown in the north. The few settle- 
ments they established there disappeared with- 
out a trace, merging in the dense native 
population, like the colonies of Germans with 
which Slovakland was dotted in the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries, and which latter were 
said to have been four times as numerous as 
those of the Magyars. Can we be persuaded 
to believe that the Magyars accomplished what 
the Germans, with their superior organization 
and Aryan language and incomparably higher 
culture, failed to do, to absorb the Slovak peas- 
ants and shepherds ? The truth of the matter 
is that ever since their coming to Hungary the 
Magyars were always massed on the Alfold. 
From the Alf6ld their expansion south and 
north for centuries has been inconsiderable. 
But even if it had been possible to have Mag- 
yarized the Slovaks, where was the incentive ? 
The idea of nationality, it should be remem- 
bered, had no place in men's minds then. 
First came the throbbing of religion ; then the 
sentiment of nationality. Properly speaking 



176 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

there were no Magyars, or Slavonians, or Ger- 
mans, or Rumuns, before the French Revolu- 
tion. Caste and birth formed the sole division 
line — the nobility and zemans being on one 
side and the serfs on the other. In Hungary 
the nationalization of the people was late in 
coming. Until 1791 Latin had been the lan- 
guage of the state, superseding all other 
languages. Again, if the present inhabitants 
of Slovakland are descended from refugees, 
religious and political, from Bohemia and Mo- 
ravia, why should the people call themselves 
Slovaks ? Where did they get the name ? 
There are Slovaks in Moravia. They speak a 
subdialect that differs from the Moravian dia- 
lect. Where did these Moravian Slovaks come 
from ? True, Hussite Bohemians settled in 
Slovakland in considerable numbers. Colonies 
of them sprang up, especially during the armed 
raids by John Jiskra of Brandys. Numerous ex- 
iles settled in the country later, during the relig- 
ious persecutions in Bohemia in the seventeenth 
century. But all the Bohemian settlements 
are accurately known : contemporaneous docu- 
ments enumerate every church, castle, and town 
that Captain Jiskra or his lieutenants had held. 
We can even guess, taking the then population 
of Bohemia as a basis of calculation, what the 



MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 177 

number of these refugees had been. Suppos- 
ing that there were 100,000 of these Hussites, 
which is an exaggerated figure, we still have 
the bulk of the nation unaccounted for. The 
Slovaks are now estimated at 2,500,000 or 
3,000,000, Bohemians and Moravians in round 
numbers at 5,000,000. We may assume that 
in the past the same or nearly the same ratio 
prevailed as now. How much population 
would it have taken from Bohemia to have 
colonized Slovensko by Bohemians? Strange 
to say, the Bohemian chroniclers of that time, 
and they were numerous, have not recorded 
any such depopulation of their native country. 
So much concerning the absurd contention 
that the Slovaks are descendants of refugees 
from Bohemia. 

The rise of the Magyar element in Hungary 
dates back to the end of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. It came spontaneously. Since King 
Stephen's time Latin had been recognized and 
employed as the official language of the coun- 
try. People of culture also preferred it as a 
medium of intercourse. A change occurred 
under Joseph II. That progressive but im- 
practicable monarch became dissatisfied that 
Austria should be a polyglot state. He 
wished his subjects to forget their mother 



178 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

tongues and to speak and to know one lan- 
guage only ; and he decided that that language 
should be German. Conformably to the reso- 
lution he formed Joseph II. issued a number 
of linguistic ordinances that are now chiefly re- 
membered for the odium they brought on their 
author. Every non-German land in the mon- 
archy was aroused to instant opposition. The 
Hungarian Estates were uncompromising, re- 
fusing to aid in the enforcement of the ordi- 
nances. It took just a decade to convince the 
Emperor that his hateful innovations were a 
failure, and that, in trying to make Austria 
German, he had been pursuing an unattainable 
dream. Therefore, he revoked the ordinances, 
in Hungary at least. Unimportant as it seemed 
at that time, the incident may really be said to 
constitute a turning point in modern Hun- 
garian history. Latin had in the meantime 
become an anachronism and the Estates con- 
cluded that that language was just as objec- 
tionable to them as German. Why not, since 
a change had been decided upon, replace 
Latin with the language of a people who have 
always guided Hungary's destin)/, who were 
politically and numerically the strongest single 
factor in the fatherland? Unanimously the 
diet agreed that Magyar should be the succes- 



MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW i; 9 

sor of Latin. First, the experiment was tried 
in schools. A law was promulgated in 1790 
introducing Magyar in the higher institutions 
of learning. Another law was enacted in 1792 
requiring every government official to show a 
competent knowledge of it. By 1830 the diet 
recommended to all employees of the state to 
transact business in Magyar exclusively. Six 
years later the recommendation assumed the 
form of an order. 1 By 1848 Magyar became 
compulsory in the public schools. At present 
it is paramount in parliament, compulsory in 
schools, and used exclusively in the administra- 
tion of the government. 

The prestige that the Magyar element at- 
tained as a result of the elevation of its idiom 
to the dignity of an official language was incal- 
culable and instantaneous. Until the passage 
by the diet in 1 790 of the famous ordinances, 
all natives of Hungary may be said to have re- 
garded themselves as equal. Since then their 

1 A legal opinion which is entitled to some respect contends that a 
wrong interpretation was originally put on the session law of the 
diet of 1790-1791. What that law terms " lingua hungarica nativa" 
should not be translated to mean Magyar, because under an estab- 
lished custom a person of Magyar birth used to be designated as 
" Hungarus" while a native of Hungary, other than a Magyar, was 
styled "Hungarus nativus." "If this be true," reasons the above 
authority, " lingua hungarica nativa " cannot mean the Magyar lan- 
guage, but an idiom which is native to " Hungarus nativus," that is 
Slovak to a Slovak, Rumun to a Rumun, etc. 



180 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

mutual relations have undergone a radical 
change. 1 

You fall into the Magyar cul-de-sac the mo- 
ment you reach Marchegg, on your way from 
Vienna to Budapest. The transformation is 
wonderfully sudden, and to an Austrian must 
be painful. The harsh but familiar sound of 
German to which your ear has accustomed it- 
self during your stay in the Hapsburg capital 
ceases to be heard at Marchegg, a town near 
the Hungarian frontier, and its place is every- 
where usurped by Magyar. Even the Austrian 
double-headed eagle which in Cisleithania 
spreads its protecting wings over every "Ta- 
bak Trafik " is seen no more this side of the 
river Leitha. From now on the only coat of 
arms that one sees is that of the royal Hunga- 
rian crown. At home, in the H of burg, Francis 
Joseph I. may be Emperor of Austria if he 
likes, and wear the title which his ancestors 
assumed in 1804, but here in Hungary he 
must be King or nothing. 

1 In 1848 the old-time Latin designation of the country, " Hunga- 
ria," was abolished for a new name, " Magyarorszag," and the law of 
1868 created the fiction that Magyars were the sole nation in the land, 
the other inhabitants being mere "nationalities" and "alien 
nationalities" at that. Accordingly, no Slovak may refer to his 
people in print as a "nation," only as "nationality." Should the 
proscribed word "nation" nevertheless appear in print the local 
prosecuting attorney may proceed at once to punish the author. 



MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 181 

The Austrians assert that Hungary contrib- 
utes as her share toward the common expenses 
30$ in cash and gets 50^ of rights in return. 
This reproach may not be wholly true ; yet, if 
any one ever thought that the Magyars got the 
poorer side of the bargain they made with 
Austria in 1867, let him glance at the balance- 
sheet of Hungary's commerce for the last 
twenty-five years, and, above all, let him go to 
Budapest and see that bustling city. With its 
wide, clean, and well paved "uts" and "utczas," 
teeming with business, Budapest bids fair to 
rival Vienna in the course of the next quarter 
of a century. But few ties — not those of blood 
and common ancestry, remember — unite Aus- 
tria and Hungary together. The army and 
the navy, finances, weights and measures, cus- 
toms, and foreign affairs are some of the things 
common to both halves of the empire. Of late 
years, one or two of those ties are beginning 
to snap. Already a party is forming in Aus- 
tria which favors the erection of a tariff wall 
between Transleithania and Cisleithania. Hun- 
gary's yearly output of wheat is so enormous 
that it is beginning to crush the small Austrian 
miller and flour merchant. Every wall so con- 
structed will, in the nature of things, mean one 
tie cut loose. At present the people demand 



182 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

that Magyar be substituted for German in their 
home regiments. To-morrow they are bound 
to ask some other concession. Eventually the 
relationship may narrow itself to that of a per- 
sonal union. And suppose there is a deadlock 
then ? It is well to bear in mind that, while 
Austria has survived the cesarean operation 
known as dualism, she has never been herself 
since. If another Beust were to be called in, 
who can prophesy the result ? The contem- 
plation is a mournful one, that, while Hungary 
could exist as an independent state without 
Austria, that power could hardly live without 
Hungary. Let whoever doubts it glance at 
the map of the empire. It will be seen that, 
with Hungary taken out of her geographical 
body, Austria's boundaries would become un- 
tenable, inviting territorial spoliation on three 
sides at once : by Germany, Italy, and Russia. 
Like most agricultural people, the Magyars 
appear to have no predilection for business. 
One can see it in the make-up of their capital, 
which is more Hungarian than Magyar. Al- 
though you may hear almost nothing else on 
the Kerepesi ut and the Andrassy ut but the 
euphonious tongue of the Arpa*ds, still, scratch 
a Magyar, and either a German or a Slavonian 
will turn up ! Rarely, to your query in Ger- 



MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW. 183 

man, will you receive the answer, " Nem 
ertem" — do not understand. In the principal 
thoroughfares of Budapest but few store signs 
bear names with a Magyar ring. On Jewish 
New Year the author noticed fully 95 % of the 
stores in the capital closed. As a matter of 
fact, the Hebrews lend the weight of their 
enormous wealth and intelligence to the Mag- 
yar cause. It is they who constitute the bulk 
of newspaper readers. 

What one must respect about the Magyars 
is their " Schlagfertigkeit," or readiness to 
strike, to use a German military term. This 
" Schlagfertigkeit " has always been duly ap- 
preciated in Vienna. A nation that knew how 
to change the defeat at Vilagos in 1849, to 
victory in 1867, must surely possess qualities 
which even Austria is bound to recognize. 
The greatest fortune of the race was that the 
native nobility steadfastly espoused its cause. 
Unaided by the nobility, the simple-minded 
and proverbially hard-headed race might have 
never become the ruling factor in the country 
which it is to-day. 

Francis Kossuth, son of Louis Kossuth, said 
to the writer in the fall of 1903 in Budapest : 

" I fear that our relations toward Austria are 
not comprehended abroad. Hungary and Aus- 



1 84 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

tria are two sovereign states. The law of 1723 
defines our respective positions clearly. We 
are bound to mutual self-defence, that is all. 
At each coronation the Austrian Emperor, 
who is King of Hungary, takes an oath to the 
effect that he will defend and uphold the con- 
stitution of the country, and we Hungarians 
pledge ourselves to defend him in return." 

And, changing the course of his conversation 
a little, Kossuth proceeded : 

" We do not meddle with the internal policy 
of Austria, but we view with apprehension the 
endless conflicts between nationalities raging 
there. It is this racial struggle which renders 
the country weak. The only hope I see for 
Austria is that she should reconstruct herself 
as a confederation. The Germans there are in 
a minority, and they cannot hope to maintain 
their hegemony over the Slavonians much 
longer. To this confederacy we Hungarians 
would have no objection. We sympathize with 
the Bohemians in their struggle for home rule. 
They are entitled to it exactly as much as we 
are. Their only misfortune was that they had 
been beaten and almost exterminated. Aus- 
tria could never down us, except in 1849 ; but 
she had to borrow troops from a neighboring 
power to do that." 

" How is the Emperor-King liked by the 
Hungarians ? " 

" There is no disloyalty in Hungary, none 



MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 185 

whatever. The greatest trouble with our King 
is that he is too much of a German." 
" And what do you want him to be ? " 
Kossuth answered readily, " A Magyar." 
" Suppose your relations with Austria were 
only those of a personal union and in time 
even that tie became too burdensome to the 
Hungarians ?" 

" We Hungarians could not help that." 
11 A pamphlet was issued recently in Buda- 
pest advocating the idea of a ' Nagy Magyar- 
orszag ' — a Greater Hungary, that should 
extend to the Adriatic Sea and should include 
some of the Balkan States. Is your 'Party of 
Independence ' sponsor to such a plan of terri- 
torial aggrandizement ? " 

" No. There are not one hundred men in all 
Hungary who take such phantasies seriously." 
" When your father, Louis Kossuth, visited 
the United States in 185 1 he made a number 
of speeches there, in all of which he denounced 
the Austrian Government for tyrannizing the 
Magyars. It is now charged that your own 
people are guilty of the same acts of oppres- 
sion against others. Why is that right now 
which was wrong in 1848 ?" 

" There is no persecution in Hungary. The 
very fact that our census shows 47 % of non- 
Magyar people in the country proves that 
there is not and cannot be any persecution." 

So much for Kossuth. 

It is the boast of patriotic Magyars that the 



186 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

constitution of Hungary is one of the most 
liberal in Europe. Recently a Magyar noble- 
man of distinction expressed the opinion, at 
a public function given in his honor in New 
York, that the people of Hungary enjoyed the 
same measure of freedom as Americans did, 
except that theirs was not a republican form 
of government. 

Judging from the applause that greeted it, 
the sentiment found ready belief in the minds 
of those who were present. Another sentence 
that evoked enthusiasm was to the effect that 
all Hungarian citizens have equal rights under 
the law, and that protection is assured to the 
different nationalities in the use of their 
speech and the development of their respec- 
tive culture. Theoretically this may be true 
enough ; whether it is so in fact, and whether 
" Magyar freedom " implies the same notion 
as " freedom in Hungary," must be seriously 
doubted. Observing foreigners have noticed, 
for instance, 1 that the restricted suffrage, the 
manner of voting, and the arrangement of the 
electoral districts is such that, except for the 40 
members from Croatia and Slavonia, the Mag- 
yars, who according to Kossuth constitute only 
53 % of the population, hold all but about a 

1 Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, by A. Lawrence 
Lowell, 1896. 



MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 187 

score of seats in the parliament. Again, out of 
a total of 20,000,000 people but 1,000,000 are 
eligible to citizenship, the bulk of the voters 
being disfranchised. Until now the elections 
have been monopolized by the nobility, an- 
cient and new, by large landed proprietors, 
captains of industry, and their lawyers. Al- 
most all the leading statesmen and politicians 
were aristocrats by birth ! Aristocracy it was 
that stood at the helm of every revolution. 
Hungarian premiers, chosen from among the 
high nobility, managed to build up and main- 
tain a government party, to which was given 
the adjective, — does it not sound like irony? — 
" Liberal." 

" It is a well-known fact," comments an 
opposition journal, "that the Liberal party 
maintains itself in power by means of money 
wrung from wealthy men who are willing to 
pay well for a Hungarian patent of nobility. 
By far the most bountiful dispenser of titles 
was Koloman Tisza. During his premiership 
no less than 290 rich commoners were en- 
nobled. No Hungarian premier since 1848 
made such a brilliant record in this particular 
line as Tisza. The stir that was caused by 
the elevation of the brothers Guttmann to the 
rank of barons is still fresh in the minds of 
opposition journalists in Hungary and Croatia. 



188 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

It was charged openly at that time that the 
government party swelled its election fund by 
some $240,000, this sum representing the 
assessment imposed on the Guttmanns for 
the title. ' Why wonder,' wrote Arpad, sar- 
castically, i in the Middle Ages baronies used 
to be conferred on people who furnished their 
kings with large armed forces. Why in our 
times should not patriots be raised to the 
rank, who are able to supply the government 
with delegates willing to fight its battles in the 
more modern sense — on the floor of the 
parliament ? ' " 

Recently a journal was prosecuted on the 
usual charge of " incitement against Magyar 
nationality," it having encouraged a Slovak 
town to resist, by every means at its command, 
the Magyarization of its name. Needless to 
say that the editor was found guilty, and the 
town authorities lost their cause. Systemati- 
cally the Slavic nomenclature of cities, castles, 
villages, mountains, streams, and hillsides up 
in the north is rubbed off, as it were, and re- 
placed by Magyar nomenclature. In no other 
European country has the craze for changing 
one's patronymic, voluntarily and otherwise, 
taken such a firm hold as in Hungary. In 
1898 alone, 6722 persons changed their names, 
among the applicants being 58 priests, 123 
professors, 116 school teachers, 58 physicians, 



MAGYAR BROTHERS-IN-LAW 189 

10 lawyers, 7 journalists, 33 merchants, etc. 
It is characteristic that while the government 
will permit a German or a Slavonian to assume 
a Magyar name it will in every case refuse the 
adoption of Slavonian or German patronymics. 
As things are, it would be clearly hazardous 
to guess a Hungarian's ancestry by his name. 
Thus, for instance, the name of that brave 
Magyar Deputy Polonyi used to be, before the 
transformation, Pollatscheck. Deputy Veszi, 
a noted chauvinist, bore the name of Weiss 
before the exchange. Deputy Visontay's origi- 
nal name was Weinberger. The publishers 
Rakosi and Legrady formerly answered to the 
names of Kremser and Pollack respectively. 
Irany once upon a time was Halbschuh ; Deputy 
Morcsanyi, Preslicka ; Deputy Heltay, Hofer ; 
Deputy-Canon Komlossy, Kleinkind ; Palmai 
used to be Pereles ; Szederkenyi, a foremost 
Ugronist, Schoennagel; Deputy Gajary, Bettel- 
heim ; Deputy Mezei, Gruenfeld ; Deputy Csar- 
tar, Loeffelholer; Fenyvessy, Griesskorn. With 
artists and writers it is likewise. It is gener- 
ally known that the paternal name of the most 
brilliant Magyar poet, Petofi, was Petrovic. 
Less known is it that behind Munkacsy, the 
painter, was concealed Lieb, and behind Laszlo, 
also a painter, Laub, and that Wilhelmina 



igo THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Parlaghy was a Brachfeld. The ancestral 
name of Matrai, the sculptor, was Mudrlak ; 
of composer Mosony, Brand ; of pianist Po- 
lonyi, Pollatsche k ; of composer Konti, Kohn ; 
of violinist Remenyi, well remembered in 
America, Hoffman ; of the actresses Fay, 
Helvay, and Naday — Jeiteles, Schweitzer, 
and Navratil respectively. Professor Kornfeld 
changed his name to Koranyi, statistician 
Hajduska to Korosi, Professor of surgery 
Kacenka to Racsay, the orientalist and 
historian Bamberger to Vambery, historian 
Morgenstern to Marczali, Professor Kominik 
to Komonyi, and so forth. 

The Magyars have an instinctive distrust of 
the Slavs, and they like to believe that all 
Upper Hungary is steeped deep in panslav- 
ism. Yet the real danger they do not appear 
to see — the danger of pangermanism, which is 
stealthily enveloping Austria and Hungary, 
threatening to crush them both. The Slavs 
have still too many of their domestic troubles 
to settle and to occupy them before they are 
ready for conquests. Moreover, they are liv- 
ing in the morning of their history. The 
Magyars are nothing if not sagacious, but will 
it not be too late when they at last realize the 
true source of danger to their national hopes ? 



PERSECUTION. 

" Full freedom is assured to the different nationalities in the use of 
their speech and the unfolding of their culture." — The Millen- 
nium of Hungary, 1897, page 415; official work approved by 
Ministry of Education. 

COUNTLESS cases of the flagitious per- 
secution of Slovaks could be cited. A 
few instances, taken from here and there, are 
printed for the perusal of an impartial reader : 

Dr. Julius Markovic was a candidate for par- 
liament from a Slovak district in the present 
year (1905). Contrary to expectations he was 
defeated, because over one hundred of his 
votes were thrown out, unjustly, as he charged. 
Markovic entered a protest. At once the Mag- 
yar party filled a counter-protest. The court 
to which the contest was taken ordered, in fine 
impartiality, that Markovic and his protestants 
deposit a security ample to cover the costs of 
the contest. And as the counter-protestants 
put in the names of some eight hundred wit- 
nesses to be examined, to defeat the ends of 

191 



192 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

justice, of course, the court fixed the disburse- 
ments at eight hundred florins a day. As the 
examination of several hundred witnesses 
would necessarily have dragged on for weeks 
and weeks, and would have required a security 
equal to a king's ransom, Dr. Markovic very 
sensibly gave up the contest, and his opponent 
to-day sits in the " freely-elected " Hungarian 
Parliament. 

The Hungarian postal authorities recently 
put on the prohibited list the Ndrodni Listy, 
an influential daily paper published in Prague, 
Bohemia. The editor went to Pest to see what 
the trouble was, and there a department head 
informed him that his journal was excluded 
from Hungary because, first, it from time to time 
printed articles hostile to the " Magyar state " ; 
secondly, " it accused the government of forci- 
ble Magyarization " ; and lastly, " it encouraged 
closer literary relations between the Slovaks 
and Bohemians." 

On July 23, 1899, during Szell's ministry, a 
public meeting was held in Sv. Mikulas (Lipto 
Szt. Miklos). A school teacher, Salva, who has 
since been suspended for " panslavic agitation," 
attempted to speak concerning the lack of 
schools among Slovaks. Joob, a government 



PERSECUTION 193 

official who was present at the meeting, cau- 
tioned Salva not to use the term " Slovak." 
The speaker then used the term " man " instead 
of " Slovak " ; but even this designation proved 
objectionable, and Salva was not allowed to 
proceed. The next speaker, Rev. Kubik, was 
also stopped by J 60b because he alluded to 
Slovaks as "the men from Liptov County," 
and to their language as "our mother tongue." 

A schoolbook prepared for the public schools 
by John Gyorffy, and approved by the Min- 
istry of Education, says on page 10 : " Mag- 
yarorszag is our fatherland, in which live, 
besides Magyars, people of other tongues. 
Such people are designated as nationalities. 
In our country live citizens of German, Rumun, 
Servian, Russian, Croatian, and Slovene (Vend) 
nationality who, together with the Magyars, 
compose one Hungarian nation." 

Slovaks, as will be noticed, are purposely 
omitted. 

Formerly several of the middle schools and 
training institutes for teachers had modest libra- 
ries of Slovak books. All these have since been 
removed. In the pedagogical institute at 
Trnava, there was a collection of books gath- 



13 



194 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

ered together by Matzenauer, a well-known 
writer and patriot, Matzenauer's successor 
hid the books in a garret and a still later in- 
cumbent consigned them to the flames. At 
Stiavnica eight hundred Slovak books were 
thrown on a rubbish heap. 

There is a bank in Martin called "Tatra," 
incorporated originally with a capital of 400,000 
florins. The incorporators, all of them promi- 
nent Slovaks, could not, hard as they tried, 
obtain a charter, until they consented to put 
Magyar partisans and government officials at 
the head of the executive of the board of di- 
rectors. Even now the bank has on its roster 
of officers pliant creatures forced on it by the 
government. Usually it is some renegade of 
the zeman class who is foisted upon the stock- 
holders, and who, in return for the salary he 
receives, keeps the government pretty well in- 
formed as to the bank's doings. If a loan is 
made to a " panslav merchant," that individual 
is sure to suffer for it in the end. The citi- 
zens of Brehy (Magasmart) applied for a loan 
to Tatra recently. The local teacher who 
assisted in the loan negotiations on behalf of 
the commune was persecuted and harried for 
it, till at last he was deprived of his place. 



PERSECUTION 195 

About twelve years ago the people built a 
handsome Casino, or " Dom," as they call it, 
in Martin. Since the Matica building has 
been confiscated, the Dom is the only public 
property of the Slovak people. There are a 
number of taverns and inns at Martin, but the 
" Dom," though it is by far the most preten- 
tious building in the town, cannot get a liquor 
license. As a result the " D6m " is a pretty 
bad investment. 

At Martin they built a cellulose factory in 
1903. The " Tatra Bank " financed the scheme, 
which represented an investment of some $300,- 
000 (1,500,000 crowns). Imagine the conster- 
nation of the promoters and stockholders when 
the government announced that it would not 
permit the operation of the cellulose works 
by the management then in charge. This 
plainly meant that the "panslavs" who put 
money in the enterprise must either get out or 
sell out. For months after completion the cel- 
lulose factory was forced to remain idle. The 
one concession that the authorities granted was 
to permit the management to run the costly 
machinery every Saturday to save it from rust 
and ruin. Otherwise not a wheel could be 
turned in the place. The writer happened to 



196 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

be in Martin just at that time, and when the 
circumstances were related to him he could 
scarcely believe the truth of it. At last, having 
first exhausted every means of getting a license 
from the authorities, but failing everywhere, the 
stockholders were glad to sell out the "pan- 
slavic cellulose" to a party of capitalists in Pest. 

At present the Slovaks are represented by 
two deputies in the parliament, although by 
right — providing of course elections were free 
from violence, intimidation, bribery, and notori- 
ous partiality — they should have at least forty 
deputies. But it is only within the last decade 
or so that they are represented at all. Despite 
repeated trials in the past no Slovak candidate 
was fortunate enough to break through the 
iron ring, and that even in counties having, 
except for a sprinkling of local officials, pure 
native population. What is the reason ? The 
solution of this shocking condition of things 
is directly attributable to the Hungarian elec- 
toral law, which is everywhere partial to the 
Magyar race, and to the corrupt methods em- 
ployed in election times by government officials. 
In the first place, electors are arbitrarily dis- 
franchised by local notaries who prepare the 
electoral sheets. In Nitra county there were 



PERSECUTION 197 

in 1895 22,812 electors. In 1897 the number 
was decreased to 17,073. Among the 5739 
electors disfranchised for various reasons there 
was not one Magyar. The electoral lists are 
prepared with the view of catching the unwary. 
An old trick is to misspell names. Thus Valek, 
if he be an opposition Slovak, is entered as 
Valon ; Kasak as Kassan ; Kucera as Kucuri, 
and so forth. Another method employed is to 
enter on the register either the wrong age or 
occupation of the voter, which of course results 
in his disqualification, leading, possibly, to 
arrest and punishment. Deputy Gedeon Ro- 
honczy declared on the floor of parliament 
February 14, 1898, that the government spent 
in the fall of 1896 three millions of the people's 
money to defeat opposition candidates. Ro- 
honczy himself admitted receiving a bribe from 
the government that year, amounting to 5000 
florins. 1 

In 1879 a number of citizens of Tisovec 
(Tiszolcz) held a meeting for the purpose of 
organizing a singing society, and in compli- 
ance with the law in due time submitted for 
approval a set of by-laws adopted by them. 

1 Charles Kalal's exhaustive article in the Bohemian review Osveta 
entitled " About the Magyarization of Slovakland," 1898. 



198 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Because of some trivial technicality, the authori- 
ties rejected the by-laws. Promptly the petition- 
ers remedied the alleged error and handed in 
amended by-laws. What became of these no 
one knew ; but tired of waiting the petitioners 
in December, 1886, filed a new copy. A few 
days after the filing a notice was served on the 
attorney for the petitioners to the effect that his 
clients had incurred a fine of three dollars, owing 
to inadequate revenue stamping. An appeal 
was so far successful that the fine was reduced 
about one half. A higher court set aside the 
fine altogether. In the month of May the 
county authorities at last took up the matter 
of the by-laws, deciding, however, that in view 
of recurrent manifestations of disloyalty the 
by-laws must be disallowed. At once an ap- 
peal was instituted to the proper authorities in 
Pest, with the result that the government re- 
fused to interfere. A third draft of the by-laws 
appeared before the county authorites in 1890 ; 
but with no better success than before. Pan- 
slavism was still rampant among certain classes 
of Tisovec, explained a patriotic official, and 
for that reason the by-laws could not be recom- 
mended to be adopted. From this adverse 
decision the petitioners appealed anew to the 
ministry, which in turn ordered the county to 



PERSECUTION 199 

set forth its dissenting reasons more fully and 
specifically. Thereupon the county reported 
that in its opinion the industrial classes of 
Tisovec harbored anti-Magyar feelings. On 
the strength of this argument, the ministry 
dismissed the appeal. Just before the elections 
to the diet, one of the head officials of the 
county met some of the petitioners by appoint- 
ment, and then and there entered into a com- 
pact with them to recommend their by-laws 
for approval, providing they in turn would sup- 
port the government candidate. Accordingly 
the much-tried by-laws were once more sub- 
mitted for the scrutiny of the authorities. 
Unfortunately the county clerk did not like 
the proposed name of the society. So he 
asked the petitioners to change it and hand in 
the by-laws at some later day. The suggestion 
was willingly complied with. After long and 
patient waiting, it became plain to them that 
the county officials procrastinated on purpose, 
and the petitioners, or rather those of them who 
were yet living, decided to ignore the local 
authorities and to send a certified copy direct 
to Pest to be filed there. This so angered the 
local Magyar patriots that their mouthpiece, 
the Gomor Kzskont, published a scathing 
article against Tisovec, calling the petitioners 



200 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

bandits ! In course of time the government 
returned the by-laws to the municipality of 
Tisovec. What did that corporation think of 
them ? Of course Tisovec gave its glad sanction 
— but there the matter rested again. And thus 
the citizens of Tisovec waited for nineteen 
years for the approval of the by-laws of a sing- 
ing society. 

A number of Slovak working men in Pest 
decided, a short time ago, to organize an edu- 
cational society. The ministry rejected the 
by-laws on the ground " that an educational 
organization pursuing nationalist tendencies 
could not be allowed." 

The Martin Ndrodnie Noviny published an 
article on May 3, 1897, entitled " Paralysa Pro- 
gressiva," in which the writer denounced in 
scathing language the capricious Magyariza- 
tion of Slavic names of towns, etc., in Nitra 
County, urging the respective municipalities 
to resist the practice by invoking the law's aid 
if necessary. In support of his contention the 
writer cited the opinion of Charles Taganyi, 
a member of the Magyar Historical Society 
who was sent out to report on the matter. 
Taganyi was adverse to the plan, claiming 
that " local topographical names were the most 



PERSECUTION 201 

trustworthy witnesses of the past of this or that 
place, equal in value to documentary proof, 
and, whenever possible, should be preserved." 
July 15, 1897, the Ndrodnie Noviny printed 
another stinging article, called " Slavery from 
Above and from Below," and written in the 
usual opposition vein. To the prosecuting 
attorney both articles appeared libellous, and 
on June 23, 1898, Ambrose Pietor, one of the 
editors, though not the author of the articles, 
was found guilty by a jury of twelve for 
" inciting against Magyar nationality," and 
sentenced to state's prison for eight months. 

When the news spread in Martin that Pietor 
was returning home, having served his term in 
jail, the relatives of the popular editor, his 
friends, and admirers, flocked to the railroad 
station to shake hands with him and felicitate 
him on his home-coming. Mathias Dula, it 
appears, made a short address of welcome 
when his friend was alighting from the rail- 
way carriage, and three women, Viera Dula, 
Etelka Cablk, and Ella Svehla, presented 
Pietor with flowers. 

Quietly and orderly the enthusiastic throng 
now proceeded from the railroad station to the 
town. 

At this juncture appeared on the scene — 



202 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

more as an agent provocateur than as an offi- 
cer of peace, for until now peace was not 
disturbed — Attila Ujhelyi and ordered his gen- 
darmes to surround the vehicle in which sat 
Pietor and Dula. Angry and insulted at this 
unnecessary show of force, the crowd began to 
sing the national anthem, and continued sing- 
ing this and other patriotic songs until the 
editor reached his home. Later Ujhelyi's 
gendarmes broke into the court of Mudrofi's 
house, where the editorial rooms of the Ndrod- 
nie Noviny are located, under the pretext of 
looking for a " tall man who sang defiantly in 
their faces." When ordered out of the prem- 
ises, which they had no right to enter without 
a warrant of law, the gendarmes loaded their 
muskets and threatened to shoot if interfered 
with. 

The sequel to the above incident came later, 
when Ujhelyi, anxious to make a record for 
himself before his superiors as a " scourge of 
panslavs," lodged a complaint for seditious con- 
duct, on information and belief, against thirty- 
two citizens of Martin. Oddly enough Ujhelyi 
informed on every one against whom he either 
had a personal grudge or whom he suspected 
of panslavic agitation, no matter whether he 
or she were present at the demonstration or 



PERSECUTION 203 

not, as was proved by subsequent investiga- 
tion. 

Long and ruinous — ruinous for the defend- 
ants of course — prosecution ensued, with the 
result that the criminal court sentenced to 
prison Matus Dula for 3 months, B. Bulla for 
2 months, Svetozar Hurban for 1 month, Vla- 
dimir Mudrofi 1 month, Andrew Halasa 1 
month, Joseph Skultety 1 month, Joseph 
Capko 1 month, Steve Cablk 1 month, John 
Cablk 14 days, Ludwig Soltesz 14 days, Joseph 
Fabry 14 days, Joseph Cipar 1 month, An- 
drew Sokolik 14 days, Samuel Kucharik 14 
days, Konstantin Hurban 1 month, Paul Mud- 
ron 14 days, Peter Kompis 1 month, Gedeon 
Turzo 14 days, Julius Branecky 14 days, Anton 
Novak 14 days, Anton Bielek 14 days ; Viera 
Dula was fined 50 florins, Etelle Cablk 100 
florins, Helena Svehla 50 florins. The Appel- 
late Court, to which the cases were taken, enor- 
mously increased the sentences and fines along 
the whole line. Thus Matus Dula received 
6 months imprisonment, Svetozar Hurban 5 
months, Mudron 3 months, and so forth. 

In its insane desire to denationalize Slo- 
vensko at all hazards, the Hungarian Govern- 
ment lent its aid to the ''transportation" of 



204 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

Slovak children to pure Magyar districts. The 
first expedition of this kind, conducted ostensi- 
bly under the auspices of the " Culture Society 
of Upper Hungary," was undertaken in 1874, 
and netted 400 children. On the second ex- 
pedition, in 1887, 1 90 youngsters were captured 
and separated from their parents without the 
latter's consent. A third child hunt took place 
in 1888, and with the assistance of gendarmes 
86 children were taken away. The fourth ex- 
pedition, organized in Liptov County, brought 
only 15 children. The fifth child crusade is 
recorded in Nitra County, in 1892, 174 child- 
ren being herded together for transportation 
to Magyar districts in the Hungarian lowlands. 
About this time a violent protest was raised 
against the inhuman practice and it was 
stopped. 

In June, 1904, at Paludzka (Kispalugya) the 
Rev. Paul Cobrda, while conducting a school 
examination at that place, sang with the child- 
ren three popular Slovak songs, one of them 
being Kto za pravdu hori (" He who is afire 
for truth "), and at the end of a patriotic talk to 
the little folk said something like this : " Dear 
children, remember well your lessons, for it 
may have been your last examination in 
Slovak. They may want to deprive you of 



PERSECUTION 205 

your mother tongue in the future, and you 
may hear nothing but Magyar." On February 
23, 1905, the reverend preacher was tried by a 
jury at Ruzomberk (Rozsahegy) on a charge 
of sedition, and sentenced to state's prison for 
six months, to pay a fine of 200 crowns and the 
costs of the trial, amounting to 560 crowns. 

Relatives and admirers of the late Joseph 
M. H urban, patriot and preacher, erected at 
Hlboka a suitable monument to his memory. 
Arrangements were made to have the monu- 
ment unveiled on September 8, 1892. From 
all parts of the country people arrived to be 
present at the unveiling ceremony. To the in- 
dignation of the assembled multitude, and to 
the poignant grief of the family, gendarmes 
broke into the church and parish house and 
ordered the crowd to disperse, threatening to 
use force unless their orders were strictly 
obeyed. The widow and immediate members 
of the family were allowed to enter the ceme- 
tery conditionally. But the family was not in 
a mood to barter for conditions with the official 
in charge of the gendarmes, explaining that, as 
the local authorities had permitted the unveil- 
ing ceremony to take place unrestricted, and 
that as nothing had been done to disturb the 



206 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

peace, the ceremony must go on as originally 
planned or not at all. Smarting under the 
brutal conduct of the gendarmes, and deeply 
hurt in his filial affection, the son of the dead 
patriot, Svetozar H urban Vajansk^, who is 
editor-in-chief of the Ndrodnie Novzny, wrote 
a scathing condemnation of the government 
which tolerated such atrocities, heading his 
article " Hyenism in Hungary." For the 
authorship of the article the distinguished pub- 
licist was prosecuted, convicted, and promptly 
sentenced to two years in state's prison. 

Isadore 2iak, in 1898, wrote an article for 
the Ndrodnie Noviny, under the heading 
" Megalomania." To put it somewhat irrever- 
ently, Ziak essayed to prove that the Magyars 
were suffering from a case of " big head." The 
district attorney of the place recognized in the 
article an insult to the dominant race ; in other 
words, the crime of inciting against the Magyars, 
and prosecuted the author. On the trial of the 
case, Ziak's attorney tried to convince the jury 
that panslavism, for which the Slovaks were 
being harried interminably, was a myth and an 
invention. " Not so, however, is pan-Magyar- 
ism, which purposes to denationalize Hungary." 
Continuing, Ziak's attorney pleaded : 




/ - 




PERSECUTION 207 

" The prosecution urges you to act in ac- 
cordance with paragraph 172 of the Penal 
Laws, which treats of incitement against a class 
or nationality. Do you remember what that 
good and honorable Magyar Mocsary said 
when the law under which you, gentlemen of 
the jury, are asked to convict my client, was 
debated in the diet? Mocsary maintained at 
that time that the law was a device to oppress 
non-Magyar people. True, Minister Pauler 
defended the measure, assuring the legislature 
that those who conceived the law had in mind 
the protection of Magyars and non-Magyars 
equally. But what does experience teach us 
from day to day ? That non-Magyar defend- 
ants alone are caught in the meshes of this law 
— for has any one ever heard that this kind of 
prosecution was brought against a Magyar 
newspaper for inciting against Slovaks, not- 
withstanding the fact that it is the latter who 
suffer most in the columns of the hostile press ? 
We suspect that the government has an object 
in bringing all these suits against our principal 
newspaper, the Ndrodnie Noviny, That ob- 
ject seems to be to muzzle and to ruin our 
press. In one year the editors of the Ndrodnie 
Noviny were saddled with nineteen months 
of state's prison, and 1600 florins in fines." 

All pleading and eloquence were in vain, for 
the sentence of the court was : " Isadore Ziak, 
having been found guilty of incitement against 



208 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 

the Magyar race in the article entitled ' Meg- 
alomania/ is sentenced to state's prison for 
three months, and to pay a fine of 800 crowns 
in addition to the cost of the trial." 

In February, 1905, Igor Hrusovsky, editor 
of the Povazske Noviny y received a sentence of 
one year in state's prison and 500 crowns fine 
because of seditious incitement against the 
Magyars. Wherein consisted Hrusovsky's 
crime? In disagreeing with a jury that had 
found guilty of the crime of incitement John 
Valasek, a Slovak representative to parliament. 

As justly famous is the case of the brothers 
Markovic, one of whom is a lawyer and the 
other a physician, and of Ludevit Culik, a 
Protestant minister. On September 22, 1901* 
Rudolph Markovic, who was a nationalist can- 
didate for parliament, came in company with 
his brother to Home Bzince (Felsobotfalu) to 
speak to his constituents. It appears that both 
brothers Markovic in their speeches in this 
place condemned the mad course of the gov- 
ernment toward the Slovaks. From Bzince 
the Markovic brothers proceeded on the same 
day to Lubina, and there again addressed a 
crowd of about 600 to 800 people, in the usual 
opposition style of campaign speakers. Rev. 



PERSECUTION 209 

Culik also spoke at the latter place. To the 
local notary the speeches appeared seditious, 
and he lodged a complaint against the speak- 
ers, with the result that the criminal court 
at Nitra, which town was once the proud seat 
of King Svatopluk, sentenced Dr. Rudolph Mar- 
kovic to state's prison for five months with 500 
crowns fine ; Dr. Julius Markovic to state's 
prison for two months with 200 crowns fine ; 
pastor Ludevit Culik to three months state's 
prison with 500 crowns fine. From this sen- 
tence all three defendants appealed to the 
" Curia Regis " at Pressburg, and to quote the 
exact words of a Bohemian newspaper/' A most 
unheard-of thing happened in Slovakland — the 
Appellate Court reversed the Lower Court 
and set the defendants free. Of course, the 
Markovic brothers and Rev. Culik were inno- 
cent, but nobody expected that a Slovak in 
Hungary, once sentenced to prison for sedition, 
could be released from the clutches of the law." 
Dr. Julius Markovic, after his release, pub- 
lished the whole case in book form (252 pages) 
under the title : Nitriansky politicky trestny 

process. 
14 



/{ vo v,e - r 



V s 



« a. 





AUSTRO 
HUNGARIAN 
MONARCHY 



Showing SLOVAKLAND 

or 

SLOVEMSKO. 



INDEX 



Albrecht, King, 66. 
Alexander I., of Russia, 30, 

3i, 32. 
Arady, Adalbert, 118. 

Bach, Minister, absolutism 
of, 87; resigns, 88. 

Bajza, Joseph I., precursor 
of Bernolak, 106, 116, 118. 

Bachat, Daniel, 129. 

Bartholomaeides, 119. 

Batthyanyi, Premier, opposes 
Slavic Congress, 40. 

Bel, Matthew, 112, 117. 

Bella, Andrew, 129. 

Bernolak, Anton, codified 
Slovak language, 105, 106, 
107, 108, 109, 112, 115, 116, 
117; founds societies to 
propagate it, 118, 121, 125, 

136. 

Bencur, Dr. Matthew, 143. 

Bielek, Anton, 144. 

Bludek, leads Slovak in- 
surgents, 84, 85, 86. 

Boleslav, Empire of, col- 
lapsed, 13. 

Bohemians, " Apostles of pan- 
slavism," 24; establish set- 
tlements in Slovakland, 67 ; 
deplore literary secession 
of Slovaks, 122. 

Borik, Jaroslav, 80, 84. 

Botto, John, 137, 140, 141. 

Bfetislav, 13. 

Caban, O, 126. 
Cernansky, S., 119, 125. 
Cerven. Thomas, 92. 



211 



Chrastek, Michael, 92. 

Charles, King Robert of An- 
jou, 62, 63. 

Chalupka, Samuel and John, 
family of writers, 129, 137, 
140, 142. 

Cobrda, Rev. Paul, 204. 

Cochius, C, 126. 

Csak, (Csaky) Matthew, 
noted Slovak rebel, 62; 
wars on King, 63; ambi- 
tions of, 64; defeated at 
Rozhanovce, 64, 65, 103, 

134. 
Croatians, resent Magyar 

meddling, 72; make war on 

Magyars, 79. 
Culik, L., 208, 209. 
Cyril, Slavonic Apostle, 3, 

10, 11, 12, 14, 49, 57, 171. 
Czambel, Dr. Samo, author 

of " Slovaci a ich rec," 

112, 127. 

Dattel, Anton, 118. 
Daxner, Stephen M., drafted 
"Memorandum," 89, 91, 

143, 163. 
Deak, 94. 
Dobrovsky, Joseph, father of 

Slavic philology, 23, 24, 25, 

31, no, in. 
Dobsinsky, Paul, folklorist, 

129, 142. 
Dohnany, Nicholas, 142. 
Dolezal, 125. 

Elizabeth pueen, troubles 
during reign of, 66, 67. 



212 



INDEX 



Eszterhazy, 40. 

Falbi, Simon, 118. 

Fandli, George, 106, 118. 

Fejerpataky, Caspar, 123. 

Feriencik, Nicholas Stephen, 
142. 

Florinskij, Russian philolo- 
gist, upholds independence 
of Slovak, in. 

Frischeisen, Colonel, 86. 

Francisci, John, 91, 142. 

Frankfort Parliament, aims 
at entity of Austria, 35; 
precipitates Slavic Con- 
gress, 37, 38, 76, 82. 

Gaj, Ljudevit, journalist, 
father of "Illyrism" or 
unity of South Slavs, 29; 
supports Jelacic, 73, 81, 82. 

Germans, builders of cities in 
Hungary, 60; at height of 
influence under Joseph II., 
61 ; their settlements in Slo- 
vakland absorbed, 62. 

Gerometta, E., 126. 

Godra, M., 119, 129. 

Graichman, Jacob, 142. 

Griinwald, Adalbert, 95, theo- 
ry of extermination of Slo- 
vaks, 96, 97. 

Hamaliar, M., 119. 

Hattala, Prof. Martin, gives 

to Slovak scientific and 

Slavonic finish, 108, 126, 

127. 
Havlicek, Charles, Bohemian 

journalist, 33; dissents 

from Kollar's views, 34. 
Hegediis, Roland, 155. 
Hegel, theories of, accepted 

by Slovaks, 140. 
Herder, German philosopher, 

panslavist seed traced to, 

22, 23, 26. 
Holly, John, Bernolakist poet 



of prominence, 107, 128, 
136. 

Holly, George, 118. 

Hodza, Michael M., 51, 65, 
80, 84, 85, 86, 108; writes 
" Epigenes Slovenicus," 

125, 126, 127, 128, 134; per- 
secuted and exiled, 138, 139. 

Holuby, 80, 120, 143, 154. 

Hrobon, Samo, mystic and 
Hegelian, 126, 139. 

Hruskovic, 125. 

Hrusovsky, Igor, 208. 

Hunyadi, regency of disputed 
by Csak, 67. 

Hurban, Joseph M., soul of 
revolutionary movement, 
51, 65, 80, 84, 85, 87, 127, 
128, 134, 137, 138, 139; 
Slovak O'Connell, 205. 

Hussites, 54, invade Slovak- 
land, 66; introduce Kralic 
Bible, 68, 104; nationalize 
Slovaks, 115. 

Illyrism, abhorred by Mag- 
yars, 73; meaning of, 82. 

Jagic, in. 

Janecek, military leader of 
insurgents, 84, 85, 86. 

Jelacic, Ban Joseph, 73, 
defiant toward Magyars, 
74; abolishes serfdom at 
home, 77, 78; implored to 
aid Servians, 79 ; wages war 
on Magyars, 80; adverse 
criticism of the Ban, 81,82. 

Jiskra, John, of Brandys, 
Hussite Captain, 67, 114, 
167. 

Joseph II, Emperor, 95; 
tries to make Austria-Hun- 
gary German, 62, 106, 113, 
177; his ordinances, 178. 

Jungmann, Nestor of Bohe- 
mian letters; views on pan- 
slavism, 25, 26. 

Justh, 90, 



INDEX 



213 



Kalal, Charles, 197. 
Kalincak, John, 140, 141. 
Kellner, Peter, 142. 
Kmet, Andrew, 56, 143. 
Kopitar, 23, 25, 31. 
Kocel, Prince, Slovak ruler, 

57- 

Korvin, 103, 141. 

Kossuth, opposes non-Magyar 
nationalities, 51, 69, 71,77; 
"Kossuth Gibbets," 81, 84, 
86, 152; his son Francis 
Kossuth interviewed, 183, 
184, 185, 186. 

Kollar, John, author of " Sla- 
vy Dcera," 4; High priest 
of panslavism, 18; his 
literary reciprocity and 
"Slavonic patriotism," 19; 
appeals to Slavs to unite, 
20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 
33, 40, 41, 51, 82, 113, 122, 
124, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 

133, 134, 139, 141, 142. 

Krai, Janko, 140, 141. 

Krizko, Paul, 143, 172, 175. 

Krcmery, August, 129. 

Krman, Daniel, 112. 

Kukuljevic, Ivan, first sug- 
gested Slavic Congress, 39. 

Kuzmany, Charles, 91, 92, 
129, 142. 

Ladislav, Posthumous, 66, 

6 .7- . 
Leibnitz, his utterance to 

Peter of Russia, 23. 

Leska, Stephen, 112. 

Lewartowski, 86. 

Lewis, King, 56. 

Lichard, Milan, 151. 

Lovich, A., 120. 

Macsaj, Alexander, 105 ; pre- 
cursor of Bernolak, 116. 

Maria Theresa, 106. 

Markovic, Dr. Julius, 191, 
192, 208, 209. 

Marothy, Daniel, 129. 



Matuska, John, author of 
"Nad Tatrou sa bliska," 
135, 137, 142. 

Methodius, Apostle of Slav- 
onians, 10, 11, 14, 57, 171. 

Mecislav, of Poland, 58. 

Metternich, downfall of, 69. 

Milkin, Tichomir, 143. 

Modran, 80. 

Moyses, Bishop Stephen, 
leads deputation to Emper- 
or-King, 90, 92. 

Mudron, Paul, 51, 92. 

Niederle, Lubor, 1, 55. 
Nejedly, Joseph, 118. 

Orszagh, John, 92, 143. 

Palacky, Francis, his letter 
to the Frankfort Parlia- 
ment, 23, 36, 41, 45, 122, 

174. 
Palarik, John, 142. 
Palkovic, George, 112, 117, 

119, 137. 
Pauliny, 98, 99, 129, 137, 142. 
Pauliny-Toth, Ziga, 149. 
Pietor, Ambrose, 201. 
Podjavorinsky, Ludmila, 143. 
Podhradsky, Joseph, 129. 
Pongrac, 67, 103. 
Pfemysl, 7. 
Pribina, Prince, 57. 

Radlinsky, Andrew, 91. 
Rajacic, Metropolitan, 75, 79. 
Revay, 90. 
Rieger, Francis L., 45 ; views 

on panslavism, 46. 
Rotarides, 80. 
Rostislav, Prince, 57. 
Rudnay, Primate Alexander, 

107; munificent patron of 

letters, 117. 
Rybay, George, 112, 120. 

Safafik, Paul Joseph, author 
of " Slavic Antiquities," 



214 



INDEX 



etc., 20, 21, 23, 26, 30, 31, 

Si, no, 113, 122, 127, 132, 
133, 140, 142, 145, 146, 148, 
174. 

Saffarovic, Anton, 118. 

Samo, founder of Slavic em- 
pire, 7, 13. 

Sasinek, Francis, 98, 143. 

Scasny, J., 126. 

Seberiny, J., 120. 

Semian, 125. 

Servians, revolt and plan 
"Vojvodina," 76; cruelly 
treated by Magyars, 79. 

Sigismund, King, 66. 

Sinapius Daniel, 112. 

3kultety,49, 143- 

Sladkovic, Andrew, noted 
poet, 128, 140, 141. 

Sladkovic, Martin, 143. 

Slavic Congress at Prague, 
first family gathering of 
Slavs in centuries, 39, 41 ; 
ends abruptly by outbreak 
of revolution, 43, 77. 

Soltesz, Ellen Marothy, 143. 

Somolicky, J., 143. 

Stephen, King, fosters civili- 
zation in Hungary, 58, 59, 
104; Slavic influence at his 
court, 173, 177. 

Stodola, Dr. Emil, 156. 

Stur, Ludevit, 51 ; revolution- 
ary leader in 1848, 65, 80, 
83, 84, 108, 109, in, 119; 
reforms Slovak language, 
120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 127, 
128, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 
138, 139. 



Svatopluk, ruler of Great 
Moravia, 13, 14, 15, 47, 57, 

_ 65, 66, 97, 171. 

Suplikac, Colonel Stephen, 
Servian "Vojvoda," 76. 

Sulek, 80. _ 

Szentivanyi, 90. 

Tablic, Bohuslav, 112, 119, 

120. 
Tisza, " There is no Slovak 

nation," 98, 187. 
Tomasik, Samuel, author of 

the hymn " Hej Slovaci," 

129, 137, 140, 141. 
Tranovsky, 125. 
Trefort, Minister, 98, 99. 

Ugron, Gabriel, his utterance 
on Magyars, 50. 

Vaclav II, King of Bohemia, 

62, 63.^ 
Vajansky, Svetozar Hurban, 

author, patriot and leader, 

142, 206. 
Vambery, Arminius, 145. 
Vansa, Theresa, 143. 
Vladislav II., 66, 67, 103. 
Vlcek, Jaroslav, 102. 



Zach, 84, 85. 
Zaborsky, Jonas, 123. 
Zapolya, John, 65. 
2iak, Isador, 206, 207. 
Zoch, G., 129. 



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